She’s back! Get ready for a science fiction horror movie that might seem familiar to those who have seen the previous four films but what what else can you do in a horror series that’s as unkillable as its monster.

Its premise sounds unoriginal, but Alien Covenant turns out to be both a solid horror movie featuring one of cinema’s most terrifying monsters and an origin story for how the Aliens came to be. The film basically connects the dots for future Alien movies to eventually loop back around to serve as prequels to the original 1979 Alien.

Picking up ten years after the events of Prometheus, we follow the journey of the Covenant, a ship carrying two thousand colonists and a thousand embryos who are travelling to Oragie-6 to start a new life on this planet that is similar to Earth. However, an accident occurs on the ship which results in forty seven of the colonists dying while in stasis as well as the ship’s captain.

With the crew mourning the loss of their captain, they receive a transmission coming from another planet, again similar to Earth, but a lot closer.  After touching down on the unknown planet they begin to get their hopes up as they decide to maybe move their new home to this unknown planet. However, their hopes get dashed as two of the crew are quickly infected and the blood bath starts. 

What audiences who are fans of the Alien series of movies might be asking themselves is “how does this movie connect Prometheus and the original Alien movie?” To answer that question without spoiling the plot, this movie merely serves as a sort of more in depth origin to the Aliens themselves as opposed to Prometheus’ attempt at an origin story of introducing the Aliens as black goo.  This movie is also a sequel to the 2012 movie Prometheus with characters from the movie popping up at around the half way point and adding extra information about the planet and its less friendly inhabitants.

The acting in this movie isn’t bad with both known and unknown actors showing off their talents. Michael Fassbender returns with his robotic role in the franchise as Walter, an android programmed to help the crew of the covenant. Katherine Waterstone’s role as Daniels a strong independent female character serves as a character similar to that of Sigourney Weaver’ role as Ellen Ripley in the original Alien movies – a woman who is forced to take charge of the situation and keep a level head despite the chaos happening around her. The final notable actor in Alien Covenant is Danny McBride’s role as Tennessee, although nothing worthy of praise happens with his character it was refreshing to see Danny take a step back from his normal comedy roles and take on a more serious role as he himself deals with the terrifying creature. Only issue with the acting is that these three characters are the only standouts as everyone else is basically used to either become ripped to shreds and devoured by the big dribbling black monster or used to produce more aliens so that the film can continue to have an actual threat running around.  

Alien Covenant managed to accomplish where Prometheus failed in creating an origin story for the famous Alien monster but also serving as a solid horror movie that will potentially introduce a younger audience to the series as well as spark nostalgia for the older fans of the series. 

Director: Ridley Scott

Cast: Michael Fassbender, Katherine Waterston, Danny McBride, Noomi Rapace

Be sure to have a listen to my spoiler review as well.