DUBAI: Fede Alvarez is no stranger to horror flicks. The Uruguayan filmmaker first made his mark on Hollywood in 2013 with his take on the 1981 horror classic “Evil Dead.” In 2016, he stepped out of his comfort zone of working with a familiar IP to write and direct “Don’t Breathe,” universally acclaimed by fans of the horror genre, as well as critics.
Fast forward to today, and with “Alien: Romulus” he’s paying homage to one of the greatest sci-fi horror franchises of our time. Set between Ridley Scott’s seminal 1979 original and James Cameron’s 1986 follow-up “Aliens,” “Romulus” acts as an “interquel,” bridging the two films while telling a standalone story. “There’s an ‘Alien’ movie I’ve been waiting to see for a long time, and so when I was given a chance to do one, I just went and did exactly the things that I wanted to see as a fan,” Alvarez told Arab News.
“I think every movie, even the first one in a saga, has a backstory. In this case, it’s just that those stories happen to be other movies. But if they didn’t exist, it would work anyways.
So, you have to do it in a way that a new audience doesn’t feel alienated. It has to work for them. And if you’re a fan, you make all the connections.
That’s really the balance you’re trying to find,” he continued. The film stars Cailee Spaeny (“Priscilla”), David Jonsson (“Industry”), Archie Renaux (“Shadow and Bone”), Isabela Merced (“Sicario: Day of the Soldado”), Spike Fearn (“Tell Me Everything”), and newcomer Aileen Wu as a ragtag crew of young space colonists looking to find a way off their sunless mining colony. They head out to scavenge a decommissioned space station, hoping to find the technology necessary to leave their doomed planet behind, but instead come face-to-face with a xenomorph.
Alvarez was full of praise for his lead star Spaeny as orphan Rain, who, along with her android ‘brother’ Andy (Jonsson), is just looking to find her way to a more habitable planet. “I met Cailee a few years ago, she read for me for another project, and I was truly blown away by her presence, her acting skills, and — more than anything — her eyes. When you cast a movie, a great actor will have something that, when you push the camera on them, they save you from a lot of writing.
You don’t have to write all this dialog about the bad things that happened in their life. You see in her eyes that she had a tough life even at her young age. She’s already been through a lot.
That’s what her eyes convey,” he said. Alvarez also took time to sit with both Scott, who produced the film, and Cameron as he worked on “Romulus.” “They are both masters that I really look up to,” he said.
“It’s a privilege to be able to even meet them and it’s definitely a privilege to be able to actually work with them and make a movie together. That’s a once-in-a-lifetime privilege. “(James) Cameron was kind enough to give me some time to tell me his experience making ‘Aliens’ and then he watched the cut of my movie and gave me his thoughts on all the things that had to do with the technology of the film.
It really helped me flesh out a lot of the science-fiction ideas,” Alvarez said. “And to sit down with Ridley Scott — who has made so many great movies — and be able to discuss film and talk about this movie was such a learning experience for me. Every meeting was a masterclass in cinema,” he added.
“He had a very strong point of view of what this film should be. I did as well. We didn’t agree all the time and that’s what you want — that’s really when I think the best work comes out; when you have slightly different points of view among a lot of creative people, and you find the truth somewhere.
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