Warning: Contains SPOILERS for Alien: Romulus!
Xenomorphs and Facehuggers are enemies that Foreigner protagonists had to face each other decades ago, but Alien: Romulus features some of the franchise’s best tricks for dealing with them. When the original Foreigner was released, the Xenomorphs and Facehuggers were considered some of the scariest monsters in cinema history, being almost unbeatable. However, this scare factor was much less due to the many films that existed in the Foreigner franchise. Alien: RomulusFortunately, we’ve discovered a way to make these classic monsters even more interesting.
After years of Foreigner franchise focusing on previous film stories such as Prometheus and Alien: Alliance, Alien: Romulus finally brought the franchise back to its roots. Alien: Romulus happens between Foreigner and Aliensfocusing more on the horror and tone of Ridley Scott’s original than the lore of the prequels. Despite that, Alien: Romulus tries to be much bigger than the 1979 filmfeaturing tons of Xenomorphs instead of the one that Foreigner focused. Due to this, Alien: Romulus I had to come up with clever ways to keep these dangerous creatures out.
Alien: Romulus’ body temperature trick to survive against facehuggers is brilliant
Do something new with Facehuggers
One of the best scenes Alien: Romulus that’s when the cast of characters come across a hallway full of Facehuggers. It is explained that Facehuggers are attracted to hosts based on body temperature, with them latching onto humans due to their body temperature being higher than their surroundings. The team raises the room’s temperature to match the humans’ normal body temperature, meaning they can walk around unharmed. However, if they get scared, their temperature will change and they will be attacked.
This setup leads to one of the most tense scenes in Alien: Romulusand it’s absolutely brilliant. The new addition of this body temperature rule allows the franchise to take the classic creatures and put them in a situation where they must face them in a new way. Facehuggers were everywhere Foreigner film so far, but a scene involving the characters slowly moving through a group of them has never been done before. This is reminiscent of the slower horror of the original Foreignertherefore Alien: Romulus scene focusing on tension instead of jump scares.
Alien: Romulus’ Zero-G Trick to Fight Xenomorphs Is Clever
It takes a pre-existing rule and remixes it
Facehuggers aren’t the only ones Foreigner creatures that are faced in a unique way in Alien: Romulusas the way the characters interact with the Xenomorphs also gets a new twist. Near the end of Alien: Romulusa pack of Xenomorphs attack the survivors. Since they have acidic blood, Rain realizes that she can’t shoot them, or else the ship will have a hole. Rain realizes that if gravity is turned off, the acidic blood will not reach the ground, allowing her to kill the Xenomorphs without being sucked into the cold vacuum of space.
This is one of Alien: Romulus‘best tricksbecause it uses a pre-existing rule and finds a unique way to use it. The fact that Xenomorphs have acidic blood has existed since the first Foreigner film, with many fans of the franchise wondering what happens when the blood burns throughout the ship. Alien: Romulus had already shown the serious problems that plagued the Romulo laboratory, with the reveal of the Xenomorph trick being an incredibly clever reincorporation of this rule.
Alien: Romulus’ tricks to help the characters survive stand out from other alien films
There’s still a lot of creative potential in the franchise
Since Alien: Romulus was returning to the original films, there was a fear that the legacy sequel would be a bit repetitive. While Alien: Romulus has many Easter eggs and references, scenes like those mentioned allow the film to stand out significantly from the franchise.
THE Foreigner the franchise has never used acid blood or Facehuggers in this way, showing how clever the new film is. Alien: Romulus manages to take what’s already been established and remix it, something any good sequel should try to do. These scenes in Alien: Romulus shows that there’s still a lot of creative potential in the franchise, which means future films could expand these rules even further.