In space no-one can hear you scream, but will audiences be shouting about ‘Alien: Covenant‘ when it arrives in the spring. here’s a red-band trailer to test the bloodied waters…
There’s no doubt that Alien was a landmark science-fiction and horror outing – redefining hat could be done to scare audiences – whether you could hear them scream or not. Ridley Scott’s story of chestbursters and an an acid-blooded xenomorph aboard a drifting cosmic mining ship and the attempts by the crew to survive still holds up to this day. It made a star out of Sigourney Weaver and gave us one of cinema’s first upfront kick-ass heroines.. Equally James Cameron’s sequel, Aliens, upped the stakes and gave us a whole herd of such monsters against Weaver’s Ripley and a set of marines – though, once again, things did not go well for the central characters.
Since then the franchise fortunes have wavered, arguably none of them capturing the essence of what made the first two films work, often falling back on the basics, but not bringing anything new. 2014’s Prometheus was a new take, a prequel of sorts but one that suffered from both wanting to distance itself from the tone of the movies – exploring, thematically and physically the birth of a new life-form, but ultimately veered back into familiar territory by its end. It’s generally considered something of a high-brow misfire.
Which brings to to Alien: Covenant which will land in cinemas next March. Once again directed by Ridley Scott it looks, from the trailer released on Christmas Day, to very much be returning to the claustrophobic nature of the first film with some of the actors from Prometheus (such as Michael Fassbender, Noomi Rapace and Guy Pearce) appearing in some capacity alongside new characters. The crew of the colony ship Covenant discover what they think is an uncharted paradise, but it is actually a dark, dangerous world, whose sole inhabitant is the synthetic David (Fassbender), survivor of the doomed Prometheus expedition.
Certainly there’s some very effective, nicely-shot scares in this red-band (mature-audiences only) trailer, but it’s hard to tell whether it’s merely a wash-and-brush-up upgrade of the original concept (the scenes seem very ‘familiar’ in the way they play out) or something that will entirely stand on its own merits when seen in context.
Watch the skies on 19th May 2017 to find out if it gets under your skin…
