'Alien: Covenant' is Missing What Makes the Alien the Scariest Monster on Film (Commentary)TheWrap

The scariest “Alien” scene ever committed to film is still the creature’s first appearance.

The lengthy moment finds Brett (Harry Dean Stanton) wandering through the bowels of the Nostromo, hunting what he and the other members of the crew believe is a small but vicious creature that’s loose on the ship. What he doesn’t know is that the alien — now seven feet tall, jet black, oozing and seething — is in the room with him. When it finally reveals itself, it doesn’t pounce, but carefully and silently lowers itself into range, and then snatches him away.

Brett disappears in a fit of claws, jaws, and screams. Most of what happens to him, and to everyone else in Ridley Scott’s 1979 horror masterpiece, occurs where the audience can’t see it, only hear it.

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It’s an essential element of what makes the alien frightening. It doesn’t barrel through the Nostromo crew; it stalks them. It hides, waits, ambushes, and vanishes. It carries people off, alive and screaming, to do the unthinkable to them.

I’ve been having nightmares about this creation of Scott, artist H.R. Giger and screenwriters Dan O’Bannon and Ron Shussett for most of my life. Theirs is the scariest monster ever committed to film.

But the alien is frightening because of some very specific qualities, and the most essential of them are missing from “Alien: Covenant.”

Also Read: Every Alien from the 'Alien' Franchise Ranked, Including 'Alien: Covenant' (Photos)

The “Alien: Covenant” take on the monster feels wholly different from the 1979 iteration. It doesn’t stalk; it lumbers. The thing walks the halls of the Covenant spaceship with abandon, a creature that has nothing to fear and, seemingly, nothing to do but kill people as it happens across them. Throughout the movie, it pops up just to tear people apart in a bloody mess, seemingly for the fun of doing so.

To be fair, the alien has always been a “kill on sight” kind of creature, and it’s gone through iterations over the years. In “Alien 3,” the smaller, faster-moving monster tore through the hallways of a prison colony and then through the small band of prisoners found there, killing them (and maybe eating them?) because they were there and defenseless. Only for about half the movie is it a stalking, hidden menace, scary because it could be there, not because it definitely is. The rest of the time, it’s just chasing people down.

There are reasons most fans don’t care for “Alien 3,” most of them having to do with the off-screen deaths of characters Hicks (Michael Biehn) and Newt (Carrie Henn) from “Aliens.” But the movie also feels like a major step back on the creature itself, which went from being a hidden, insidious threat to being more like a lion or a panther — more predictable and more knowable, and therefore less, well, alien.

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In “Alien: Covenant,” there’s no subtlety to the alien at all. It goes from room to room, killing everyone it comes across. The big action sequence of the movie finds it climbing on the outside of the spaceship, trying to smash its way in like a wrecking ball. Compare that to “Alien” and “Aliens,” when the creature secreted itself away, to menace the remaining humans just as they started to feel safe.

Instead of a hunter, this alien is something more akin to Jason Vorhees of “Friday the 13th,” or the Terminator — an unstoppable force whose only ambition is to kill.

There’s even a scene in “Alien Covenant” in which the creature finds two people in the shower. It uses those hydraulic inner jaws to punch through the shower door, and the head of one of the unfortunate people just beyond. There’s a similar scene in “Jason Goes to Hell,” where the slasher impales a woman through the fabric wall of a tent. Good for gore and for shock, sure, but that’s about it. In “Alien: Covenant” and “Jason Goes to Hell” both, the moment almost plays like a joke.

Also Read: 'Alien Covenant' Review: Monsters Steal the Show in Stylish But Routine Sequel

The other key element missing from the creature of “Alien: Covenant” is purpose. Any number of movie monsters can, and do, murder everyone they come across, and the alien has been known to do the same. But the thing that makes the monster so haunting is that you might live. It carries away its victims to do something with them. It has plans for you.

A lot has been written about “Alien” deriving its horror from innate fears of rape and pregnancy, and that’s something that makes the alien stand apart from other movie monsters. It doesn’t just want to kill you, or even eat you. It wants to use you to make more of itself, and you’re going to feel every moment of it.

The alien isn’t just a killer. It’s ultimate goal is to use you, screaming, to further its own life. What it’ll do to you is a natural part of how it lives — and that’s all the more chilling.

Also Read: See All the 'Alien: Covenant' Clips, Trailers Released Ahead of Debut (Videos)

In “Alien: Covenant,” the none of the creatures bother with stealth or with motivations, and by the end of the film, the bar has been shifted. This isn’t a return of the classic “Alien” formula, as many have said. That would require an alien that hunts its prey, that plans for something more than just killing. This is the alien without its essential, horrific nature of being something so different from us and so brutal that we struggle to even understand it. This is an alien that’s just like every other monster.

That’s not the creature that’s haunted my dreams most of my life. It’s too flashy, too stupid, and in “Alien Covenant,” too easily explained away. Bring back the monster in the shadows, that could kill you, but won’t. You’re more useful alive.

Every Alien from the 'Alien' Franchise Ranked, Including 'Alien: Covenant' (Photos)

The iconic and singularly horrific creature created by H.R. Giger for Ridley Scott’s classic in 1979 springs to mind whenever anyone says the word “Alien.” But the franchise is full of variations on what’s commonly called the “xenomorph,” thanks to the parasitic creatures infecting everything from animals to people, not to mention genetic tampering by scientists. Here is every alien in the “Alien” franchise, ranked by how frightening it is — or not. (Warning: "Alien: Covenant" spoilers beyond this point.)
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17. Baby Xenomorph ("Alien: Covenant," 2017)
For some reason, "Alien: Covenant" does away with the brand of Chestburster we've been seeing since 1979 and instead adds this guy: a very small version of the fully grown alien. He then does a bit of yoga with his creator, implying an intelligence to the alien we don't usually see. But it doesn't change that a little, kind of cute version of the alien is a terrible idea for a movie that's supposed to make the monsters scary, to say nothing of retconning one of the most disturbing scenes, and creatures, ever to appear on film.
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16. Newborn (“Alien: Resurrection,” 1997)
“Alien: Resurrection” resurrected the franchise by bringing Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) back from the dead. In doing so, it mixed her DNA with the aliens, resulting in this goofy abomination. It acts like a baby — but it’s murdery! So weird, right? Luckily this nasty looking but entirely not scary little guy gets sucked out a tiny hole in a spaceship and turned into goo immediately after being born.
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15. Hammerpede (“Prometheus,” 2012)
It’s not a facehugger, it’s a snake-like wing-faced creature that just looks and acts a lot like a facehugger in “Prometheus.” This dopey goo-eel seems easy enough to avoid and only dangerous if you’re a complete idiot. Unfortunately, some of the characters of “Prometheus” are exactly that.
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14. Deacon ("Prometheus," 2012)
Another weird alien variation added in “Prometheus.” Apparently separate from the Neomorph seen in "Alien: Covenant" is this little blue guy, born from the Trilobite and an Engineer. He vanished in the space between movies and never did anything scary.
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13. Fifield Mutation (“Prometheus,” 2012)
Apparently if you get attacked by a Hammerpede and then infected with black goo, you turn into some kind of melty skull-faced maybe-xenomorph that then has superhuman strength and jumping ability and is incredibly hard to kill. Fifield, like a lot of “Prometheus,” makes no sense, and this one-off contextless monster is a weak addition to the lineup.
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12. Trilobite (“Prometheus,” 2012)
It’s hard to follow what’s going on with “Prometheus,” the black goo at its center, and the various creatures that black goo creates. But one result is the Trilobite, a cross between a squid and a facehugger. It’s not too impressive even when it’s huge on account of it just looks like a big rubber-and-CGI catch of the day.
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11. Predalien (“Alien vs. Predator: Requiem,” 2007)
The alien that results from a facehugger implanting its embryo in a Predator is a hulking version of the xenomorph. It’s not really more or less frightening than any other alien, except that it can directly implant tons of its gross embryos in a person’s throat. It’s mostly just disgusting.
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10. Dog Alien/Ox Alien (“Alien 3,” 1992)
“Alien 3” is generally considered a weak sequel because it feels like a major step back from the interesting progression achieved between “Alien” and “Aliens.” That goes for its alien, too, which, depending on which version you watched, either pops out of a dog or an ox and comes out quicker, but smaller and less menacing than previous iterations.
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9. Spineburster ("Alien: Covenant," 2017)
Though it's not significantly different from several other sorts of alien "-bursters," something about the way neomorph is born adds a fresh element of "ugh." The way it shreds its way loose with its sharp, spiny back forces the audience to think of all new kinds of "Alien" birthing pains.
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8. Neomorph ("Alien: Covenant," 2017)
The prototype xenomorph that's a big star of "Alien: Covenant" manages to hit on a different kind of creepy from its jet-black cousin, with the neomorph's weird human-like skin and lumpy body. Its vicious teeth and over-the-top aggression also set it apart, but its willingness to run straight at its victims' face isn't nearly as unsettling as the idea a xenomorph could be hiding somewhere in the shadows, waiting for you.
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7. Xenomorph (“Aliens,” 1986)
In James Cameron’s sequel to the original “Alien,” the creatures got a “name” and a bit of a design change. The aliens in “Aliens” are more like soldiers and plenty of them get dispatched by machine gun fire. But their ant hive-like single-mindedness still make them pretty scary, especially as they manage to utterly ravage movie’s marine force.
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6. Bellybusters (“Alien vs. Predator: Requiem,” 2007)
The “Alien” franchise’s xenomorphs have made it to Earth precisely two times: in “Alien vs. Predator” and its sequel. “Requiem” gives us one especially horrifying addition to the franchise: alien embryos deposited down the throats of pregnant women that turn them into something akin to spider eggs. It’s as awful as you’re imagining.
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5. Smart Aliens (“Alien: Resurrection,” 1997)
There’s a lot of weirdness going on in “Alien: Resurrection,” which jumps in the “Alien” timeline another 200 years from “Alien 3,” but it does get one thing right. The aliens in the movie are highly intelligent, setting traps for humans and even affecting their escape by sacrificing a weaker one of their number to use its acid blood to burn a hole in the floor of their cage.
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4. Queen (“Aliens,” 1986)
James Cameron’s follow-up to “Alien” was brilliant in the way it took a completely different tack from the original, while still managing to be scary. But nothing was more frightening than the enormous, obviously intelligent, shockingly powerful Queen Alien. It was like a T-Rex ravaging around the hangar of the Sulaco.
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3. Facehugger (“Alien,” 1979)
The very first creature ever seen in the series is small but explosively violent. A strange spider-like shape and a stranger method of attack in going for the face, the Facehugger’s somewhat unassuming nature makes it all the more terrifying. It’s an insect-like parasite, which makes it shudder-inducing both for being scary and for being straight-up gross.
20th Century Fox
2. Chestburster (“Alien,” 1979)
Though the “Alien” franchise and creature has been refined, and in some ways, made spookier since the original film, there’s still one incredibly horrible scene that has yet to be topped. That’s the infamous death of John Hurt’s character Kane as a baby alien tears its way out of his chest. There’s nothing in the “Alien” universe that’s quite as horrific.
20th Century Fox
1. Big Chap (“Alien,” 1979)
The original H.R. Giger creature in Ridley Scott’s sci-fi horror masterpiece stands apart from all the future versions of the monster — specifically because he’s so impossibly alien. The creature has a hint of a human-looking skull hiding under its smooth domed forehead that a little extra uncanny weirdness.
20th Century Fox

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Since the first in 1979, ”Alien“ movies have been filled with scary, and dopey, xenomorph varieties

The iconic and singularly horrific creature created by H.R. Giger for Ridley Scott’s classic in 1979 springs to mind whenever anyone says the word “Alien.” But the franchise is full of variations on what’s commonly called the “xenomorph,” thanks to the parasitic creatures infecting everything from animals to people, not to mention genetic tampering by scientists. Here is every alien in the “Alien” franchise, ranked by how frightening it is — or not. (Warning: "Alien: Covenant" spoilers beyond this point.)

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Every Alien from the 'Alien' Franchise Ranked, Including 'Alien: Covenant' (Photos)

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