Fede Álvarez Explains Why THAT 'Alien: Romulus' Birth Scene Is a Bloodbath (2024)

Editor's Note: This article contains spoilers for Alien: Romulus.

As expected from the director of the 2013 Evil Dead remake, Alien: Romulus does not hold back on the gore. While Fede Álvarez remained mostly faithful to how the kills in the previous Alien installments, he also wasn't afraid to get incredibly twisted, taking aspects like the iconic Chestburster and cranking them up to eleven. The bloodiest moment, however, comes at the end of the film when the Xenomorph life cycle gets a deeply haunting update. Collider's Steve Weintraub spoke with Álvarez for a spoiler-filled interview in which he discusses that traumatic birth involving Isabela Merced's Kay and how it was made to be eerily realistic despite the sci-fi horror elements.

Penned by Álvarez with help from his regular collaborator Rodo Sayagues, Romulus follows a group of young space colonists seeking a new start until they run into the greatest threat in the universe while scavenging a derelict space station. Among the group is Kay, the pregnant sister to Archie Renaux's Tyler, who gets put through the wringer throughout their encounter with the Xenomorphs. Her injuries eventually led her to inject Compound Z-01, the experimental serum extracted from Xenomorphs that Rook (Ian Holm/Daniel Bettis) urges the group to bring back to Weyland-Yutani. Unfortunately, it ends up bringing about Kay's demise as she soon gives birth not to a child, but a twisted offspring that is part human and part Xenomorph with a face resembling the Engineers of Prometheus. The scene is bloody and stomach-churning, marking a wicked departure from the typical Chestburster "birth."

Álvarez says the scene caught some audience members off-guard but insists that there's more reality than fiction to the act. Though the Offspring may be an unsettling amalgamation, it is still given relatively accurate proportions for a big baby and its removal was based on his experience during the delivery of his two children. The horror, he says, comes more from the creature's unnatural features and rapid growth:

"Giving birth, I've seen people upset at that scene. Clearly, they’ve never witnessed a real birth because what happened is exactly what happened in real birth, or less sometimes! I witnessed the birth of my two kids, and I've been in rooms where, while I was witnessing those or just being with my wife in the room waiting for the kid to come, and you hear the other rooms. It is a madhouse, and when you look at it, it's a bloodbath.

I don't think the character of Kay [Isabela Merced] goes through anything especially bigger than anybody. Even the blood that we see, that's exactly how it works. So, I wanted to be faithful. What I didn't wanna do was make it vanilla and break it down. It is a normal birth of an abnormal thing, but even the proportions and the size and everything, we make sure it was accurate for a big baby."

'Alien: Romulus' Adds to the Horror With Practical Effects

Adding to the realism was Romulus's focus on practical effects. The director previously explained why the Chestburster scene was easily one of his favorites because of the work of the puppeteers to accurately portray the visceral death of one of the crew members. Even the iconic Xenomorph was fully brought to life at points through the painstaking efforts of crew members. It's all to make the extraterrestrial menace and the horrific acts they inflict upon the unfortunate survivors feel all the more lifelike and enhance the horror in the process. Those principles were carried over to Kay's birth, creating a deeply unsettling ending that twists a real-life miracle into a nightmare.

Alien: Romulus is now playing in theaters. Stay tuned here at Collider for our full spoiler-filled interview with Álvarez. Check out our review here for our thoughts on the franchise's gory return.

Alien: Romulus

710

In Alien: Romulus, a crew of space explorers lands on a distant, uncharted planet, only to uncover a horrifying secret lurking beneath the surface. As they delve deeper into the alien environment, they encounter deadly creatures and ancient ruins that hint at a terrifying history. The team's survival becomes a desperate battle against the relentless xenomorphs, forcing them to rely on their wits and technology to escape the nightmarish world.

Release Date

August 16, 2024

Director

Fede Alvarez

Cast

Cailee Spaeny , David Jonsson , Archie Renaux , Isabela Merced , Aileen Wu , Spike Fearn , Rosie Ede , Soma Simon

Runtime

119 Minutes

Main Genre

Horror

Get Tickets