The Alien franchise has been through some genre shifts over its lifetime, but in the first trailer for the series’ next installment, Alien: Romulus, it’s returning to its horror roots in a big way thanks to director Fede Alvarez, shifting away from whatever Ridley Scott was doing with the last two films.
As the trailer teases, Alien: Romulus is looking to almost be a kind of reboot of the franchise as we go back to a single crew trapped on a single ship, though, this time, it appears that there is more than a single xenomorph on board — and plenty of face huggers. The new film throws a group of deep-space colonizers together with everyone’s favorite slimy, black alien monsters and, then, most likely, has them killed off one by one. It is clearly ditching all the philosophical and world-building that the franchise went through since 1997’s Alien: Resurrection to instead show us all just how scary xenomorphs are supposed to be and maybe some weird tentacle stuff, too.
Related: Aliens vs. Predator Was Once an Extremely Okay Strategy Game
Alvarez is one of the best horror and gore directors working and seems like a perfect fit for both bringing Alien back to its roots and doing something different from Scott’s original sci-fi/horror masterpiece. The director worked closely with Scott on the project, but this is his film visually from what the trailer shows, with even some hints of his Evil Dead work in there. The film stars Cailee Spaeny (Priscilla), David Jonsson (Agatha Christie’s Murder is Easy), Archie Renaux (Shadow and Bone), Isabela Merced (The Last of Us), Spike Fearn (Aftersun), and Aileen Wu. Alvarez and Rodo Sayagues wrote the screenplay. The pair previously collaborated on the fantastic Don’t Breathe.
Alien: Romulus will be released on Aug. 8 in theaters.
