Alien: Romulus: Fede Alvarez Reveals Less Is More Approach to Gore in New Movie

We talked to Fede Álvarez about gore at San Diego Comic-Con.

By Jamie Jirak

Alien: Romulus is finally playing in theaters and the new installment to the beloved sci-fi franchise is expected to return to its horror roots thanks to director Fede Álvarez, who is best known for helming Evil Dead (2013) and Don't Breathe. The movie is already impressing critics and audiences alike and is currently up on Rotten Tomatoes with an 81% critics score and 87% audience score. In honor of the film's release, Álvarez spoke to ComicBook about the film at San Diego Comic-Con and explained why the new movie is less gory than his Evil Dead remake.  

"Well, I think it is fairly gory at some points, but a lot of times it's really about what you don't see that makes it more terrifying," Álvarez explained. "And actually, we had kind of a similar experience on Evil Dead ... The first cut where you saw more, we got an NC-17. I remember on Evil Dead when we submitted to the NPAA and it was like, 'Okay, we have to cut down.' And we cut down frames just to not show that much, and we got an R, but I remember the experience of watching it. The one where we cut down was way more terrifying ... You have to show just enough and then cut away to let people think about what's happening."

"It is a classic scene on the first movie when Ridley [Scott] decides to cut to the cat, right in the first kill," he continued. "And that makes it way more terrifying because, through the eyes of the cat, you imagine what was happening there. So it's a fair amount, but hopefully, a lot of it happens more in your brain, where you imagine what's happening ... To be 'a lot of gore' for me, it has to be a lot of gore. So, you know, probably for you it was gonna be [a lot of gore], but for me, it's not a lot."

You can watch out interview with Álvarez at the top of the page. 

What Is Alien: Romulus About?

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(Photo:

Alien: Romulus

- 20th Century Studios)

Alien: Romulus is being billed as more of a spinoff rather than a direct continuation of the Alien franchise and will see a group of young space colonizers come face to face with the most terrifying life form in the universe. Álvarez has previously opened up about how a deleted scene from James Cameron's Aliens featuring young colonists inspired Romulus' story.

"My first instinct, just to try something different that hasn't been seen before, was to approach it form the angle of characters who are not professionals or scientists; they're not even adults," he said. "I liked this concept of putting people in the front seat of the story who are closer to what the audience is — not that the audience is young, more that the audience is completely virgin to the realities of space. When the characters are professionals, they know more than you do. But when they're still in their early 20s, they don't know how to operate the f-cking airlock."

He continued, "All their parents probably worked on the same ship when they were kids, and that's how they got to know each other … There's a lot of history between them because they're the only family they have. They truly act more like surrogate siblings; some of them even lived under the same roof. A lot of the big themes of the movie are about siblinghood and what does that mean? The Romulus of it all, and the bigger plot with Weyland-Yutani, is actually connected to that as well."

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Alien: Romulus stars Cailee Spaeny (Priscilla), David Jonsson (Agatha Christie's Murder is Easy), Archie Renaux (Shadow and Bone), Isabela Merced (The Last of Us), Spike Fearn (Aftersun), Aileen Wu. Fede Álvarez (Evil Dead, Don't Breathe) directs from a screenplay he wrote with frequent collaborator Rodo Sayagues (Don't Breathe 2) based on characters created by Dan O'Bannon and Ronald Shusett. 

Alien: Romulus is now playing in theaters. 

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