After the financially successful yet critically polarizing Prometheus explored the origins of the xenomorph threat, Ridley Scott is ready to return to the horror that made the original film a triumph.
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And while Alien made people squeamish—with it’s portrayal of facehuggers popping from eggs and chestbursters bursting from, well, chests—the movie wasn’t excessively gory in its depiction of mutilation and violence.
Apparently that’s all set to change with Alien: Covenant, currently the 18th Rated Film among ComicBook.com readers. The people working on the film spoke to IGN during a set visit last year, with a few of them revealing that the new movie was among the bloodiest they’d ever worked on.
“It’s legitimately freaky a lot of the stuff that’s in this film,” said Covenant star Katherine Waterston. “I’ve had these amazing moments when I’ve walked past my trailer and seen my friend’s head on a stick. So there have been times when I’ve thought it was the actor in front of me when it was a bean bag body with a perfect face. That’s actually one of the most chilling things to witness – is your friends all…damaged.”
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Special Visual Effects Supervisor Neil Corbould reiterated the actor’s point.
“We’re trying to make it as realistic as possible because that’s what Ridley wants,” Corbould said. “He wants the shock factor. We’re going all out for that. From the stuff I’ve seen, it looks fantastic. I think it’s going to have a similar impact of what the original Alien did, because that was quite shocking when everyone saw that. It’s a true horror movie and I think that’s what this is going to be like.”
He added that Scott doesn’t like to rely on the technology that most effects-heavy movies use to varying degrees nowadays.
“This is a film and Ridley, he loves to do things in camera, so the more we can do … He doesn’t like CG blood. He doesn’t like CG effects. He likes it to complement the work that we do and to do set extensions, but he loves realism. He wants a real alien running around the spaceship and stuff like that.”
Expect to see how the sharp turn into horror will bridge the worlds between Prometheus and Alien when the next film releases in theaters May 19.
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In Alien: Covenant, bound for a remote planet on the far side of the galaxy, the crew of the colony ship Covenant discovers what they think is an uncharted paradise, but is actually a dark, dangerous world — whose sole inhabitant is the “synthetic” David, survivor of the doomed Prometheus expedition.
Alien: Covenant stars Michael Fassbender, Katherine Waterston, Billy Crudup, Danny McBride, Demián Bichir, Carmen Ejogo, Amy Seimetz, Jussie Smollett, Callie Hernandez, Nathaniel Dean, Alexander England and Benjamin Rigby.