Can open, facehuggers everywhere – this is a gripping look at what Alvarez has cooked up, offering up a little more of Priscilla‘s Cailee Spaeny as new protagonist Rain, and David Jonsson as her android brother-of-sorts Andy. But it’s mostly a vehicle for Xenomorphian horror – with rib-cracking chestbursters, subaquatic facehuggers poking fleshy tubes into mouths, and a full-grown alien beastie to boot. And that ringing-ear final stretch of the trailer, with Rain coming face-to-snapping-jawed-faced with the Alien itself, is strong stuff. Hopefully Alvarez can really bring a sense of terror back to one of cinema’s most nightmarish creatures.
The film, which Alvarez co-wrote with Rodo Sayagues, is produced by Ridley Scott himself, and also stars Isabela Merced, Spike Fearn, Archie Renaux, and Aileen Wu – and, according to the studio-approved blurb, is all about taking Alien “back to its roots”. Which means, thankfully, in cinemas (and not straight to Disney+, as initially intended) everyone will hear you scream from 16 August.