‘Alien: Romulus’ Treads Into Terrifying New Gynecological Territory

There’s never been a terrible Alien movie (no, the Alien vs. Predator spin-offs don’t count), and that streak stays alive with Alien: Romulus, a seventh series entry that, chronologically speaking, takes place between 1979’s Alien and 1986’s Aliens.

A throwback that faithfully channels its illustrious predecessors while simultaneously adding a few wrinkles to its familiar mix, Fede Álvarez’s sequel, which hits theaters August 16, proves that, 45 years after the xenomorph first terrified audiences, there’s still plenty of acid-bloody life left in the franchise’s monstrous bones.

Sixty-five million light years from Earth, Rain Carradine (Priscilla and Civil War’s Cailee Spaeny) dreams of the sunshine that never peeks through the storm clouds above Jackson’s Star Mining Colony. Rain wants to escape this gloomy and grimy planet with Andy (David Jonsson), a glitchy (and thus “adolescent”) android who was programmed by her late father to protect her at all costs and, concurrently, to tell corny dad jokes. Andy faces discrimination from the locals, but Rain views him as her “brother”—a surrogate sibling relationship that replaces prior Alien films’ mother-child undercurrents.

Read more at The Daily Beast.