On Wednesday, the trailer for XENO dropped online, inviting fans into a unique fusion of Alien and E.T. The movie was written and directed by Matthew Loren Oates, and produced by Kevin Hart. It stars Lulu Wilson as a teenage girl who forms an unlikely friendship with a monstrous alien who has crash-landed on earth. Wilson, 19, has an impressive list of credits going back to her childhood, including a one-episode role on Star Trek: Picard. She is clearly poised to take on more starring roles, and this is an exciting start. XENO hits theaters on September 19th in the U.S.
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Xeno promises all the terror and gore of a monster movie with the heart of a children’s adventure film. The trailer is scored with sweeping strings, and the story as we see it here clearly references E.T. — Wilson’s character Renee is the first to discover a crash-landed alien, and she befriends it rather than fearing it. She keeps it hidden even as more and more people try to hunt it down.
The difference here is the obvious danger posed to Renee. This alien is not a diminutive biped that can pick up on the English language — it’s a large, powerful creature with claws, natural armor, and the strength to keep up with an ATV at a run. That’s before even considering its supernatural powers, which seem to lift and hold Renee in the air on their first meeting.
Wilson played Kestra on Star Trek: Picard Season 1, Episode 7, “Nepenthe,” but she is best known for playing the titular hero of the thriller Becky in that same year. She reprised her role in The Wrath of Becky in 2023, playing a teenage girl who violently outwits and overcomes a group of escaped convicts attempting to pillage her family home. Many of Wilson’s other big roles are in the horror and thriller genres — she played the younger version of Shirly in The Haunting of Hill House, and Marian Crellin in Sharp Objects, to name a few.
XENO, meanwhile, is the first credit for Oates on IMDb in any capacity. Hart produced the movie through his company Hartbeat, which helped secure a connection with Jim Henson’s Creature Shop in order to make the alien look real. Other stars include Wrenn Schmidt, Paul Schneider, and Omari Hardwick.
XENO will be distributed by Blue Fox Entertainment, and will hit theaters on September 19th.
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Image courtesy of Warner
