‘Alien: Romulus’ delivers scares aplenty despite feeling awfully familiar

There is idol worship, and there is Fede Alvarez.
The Uruguayan filmmaker takes fan devotion to new heights (or new lows) with “Alien: Romulus,” a sci-fi/horror franchise instalment so faithful to previous chapters, the multiple callbacks quickly become rote box-checking.
Grimy spacecraft invaded by revolting space parasites? Check. A corrupt and colonizing corporation seeking to exploit its desperate workers? Check. Grotesque scenes of humans grappling with face-huggers, chest-bursters and canoe-headed xenomorphs? Check, check and ick.
“Alien: Romulus” is set between the events of Ridley Scott’s original “Alien” (1979) and James Cameron’s sequel, “Aliens” (1986), the two best movies in the now nine-film franchise. (That’s if you include two wretched “Predator” crossover flicks, which I suppose we must.)
Alvarez’s reverent mimicry reflects a man who never saw a horror classic he didn’t want to make his own. He wrote and directed a remake of Sam Raimi’s “Evil Dead” and wrote and produced a redo of Tobe Hooper’s “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.” (He also has an original thought to his credit, the twisted home-invasion thriller “Don’t Breathe.”)
The highly derivative “Alien: Romulus” is nevertheless a worthy addition to the xenomorph canon, especially if you think of it less as a sequel or prequel and more as a stand-alone story with a younger cast.
And the 20-something actors are solid, notably David Jonsson as Andy, the latest addition to the franchise’s list of android companions.
A conflicted figure with a glitchy operating system and perpetually furrowed brow, Andy is the devoted “brother” of Rain (Cailee Spaeny), an orphaned mine worker who is this film’s version of Sigourney Weaver’s stoic alien fighter, Ripley.
Rain is every bit as cautious as Ripley and also as blam-blam-blam handy with a pulse rifle, when the time comes to go mano a mano with the monsters.
The film’s other major characters are Rain’s ex-boyfriend Tyler (Archie Renaux), Tyler’s sister Kay (Isabela Merced); fellow mine worker Bjorn (Spike Fearn); and spacecraft pilot Navarro (Canada’s Aileen Wu).
They’re all in on a risky plan to leave the ringed mining planet, where they’ve been toiling for an evil corporation, so they can scavenge valuable materials from an approaching derelict space station called Renaissance. The space station has two modules, Romulus and Remus, the former designed to look like the space colony of “Aliens” and the latter resembling the Nostromo spacecraft of “Alien.”
Guess which one has frozen specimens of the titular beastie, patiently waiting for the lights to go back on and the temperature to rise?
Alvarez and his team create a decent facsimile of a classic “Alien” movie, which includes many jump scares, much body horror and gobs of goo and acid (which becomes airborne in one of the better scenes).
Practical effects have been used as much as possible, to give the actors a tactile sense of their predicament, but eschewing CGI is not always in the film’s favour. Scenes inside the alien hive, for example, look like they’re from a funhouse ride, more laughable than scary.
There is also a controversial use of filmmaking technology that can’t be discussed here (because spoilers) but which will surely spark much discussion.
And there’s a third-act plot twist that might qualify as an innovative addition to franchise lore, had Alvarez not stolen the idea from Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s “Alien Resurrection” (1997), the fourth film in the franchise.
Alvarez’s blatant pillaging of the past — even the pulse-quickening score and opening credits are callbacks — may not matter to people who value scares more than originality. “Alien: Romulus” certainly delivers the frightful goods.
All of the film’s action happens during the period in the “Alien” franchise timeline when heroic original survivor Ripley is in stasis sleep, awaiting the events of “Aliens.”
It’s fun to think that maybe she’s dreaming about what her doppelgänger Rain is doing in “Alien: Romulus,” but we’ll never know. In space, no one can hear you dream.