Alien: Romulus (Benjamin Wallfisch)

What is it?

Alien: Romulus is the seventh entry in the official Alien saga, taking place between the first and second film in the series. It is directed by Uruguayan “hot shot” Fede Alvarez, who has already made his mark on genre fare through his remake of Evil Dead (2013) and the sleeper hit Don’t Breathe (2016).

While there is much to cherish in the film, like production design and intense, creative setpieces, it is plagued by two major problems: One, the over-reliance on references to previous films in the series, thus having no real identity of its own. The previous films have all been marked by definite auteur stamps, from Ridley Scott to James Cameron to David Fincher to Jean-Pierre Jeunet. Alvarez is not of that calibre. He’s not even an auteur, at least not yet. Two, a very young cast that ironically undermines the suspense that arises when an adult person meets challenges his or her life experience can’t cope with.

If the goal of the film series is to expand the universe and add story elements at its most superficial level, Alien: Romulus succeeds. If, however, the goal is to have auteurs shape the basic, simple premise into their own – which I think it is, and which separates it from all other franchises – it fails.

While we note the conspicous absence of Roque Baños, Alvarez’ previous composer collaborator, Benjamin Wallfisch (b. 1979) is one of greatest chameleons of his generation, equally at ease with elegant symphonic landscapes as he is electronic excursions, exemplified – for example – in his collaborations with Hans Zimmer (Blade Runner 2049, Dunkirk). Having experience in horror, most notably the new version of Stephen King’s It (2017-2019), attempting a go at the Alien universe seems like a fairly natural thing.

How is it?

Alas, since the film is very disparate in approach, the score follows suit. There are references to Jerry Goldsmith’s original (both literally and in instrumentation, like the echoey flutes), a nod to Elliot Goldenthal’s Alien 3 in the warped Fox logo, a cameo of Harry Gregson-Williams’ «Life» theme from Prometheus and so on. When it isn’t that, it goes in all other directions – symphonic melodicism, lofty electronic ambiance, gruelling sound effects stuff with throbbing heart pulses and an oscillator knob gone wild. There doesn’t seem to be any overarching vision or style, which hurts the overall impression in the film.

Since several of the individual cues are fine in and of themselves, one might think they work better on album. Unfortunately, the album – while curated at 57 minutes – is still too long and scatterbrained for the ideas on display. The first five tracks are rather beautiful, mysterioso excursions into a tonal landscape that hints at its predecessors while being its own thing. But from «There’s Something in the Water», Wallfisch introduces gutwrenching electronic effects that work more as verfremdungseffects than as an organic layer.

From there on out, the album is a mix of these two elements (the horrific, visceral “effects” and the doom-laden, darkly romantic landscapes), which makes playlisting an obvious solution. There are probably a solid 30-40 minutes of deliciously dark Alien music in here, with definite highlight tracks such as «That’s Our Sun» «Searching», «Andy» or «Sleep» – perhaps with one or two horror tracks to spice things up. But you need to do the work yourself.

Since Wallfisch is a composer who clearly has the chops, this feels like a missed opportunity. Had he been given greater freedom to sculpt a consistent, organic score (something even Marc Streitenfeld and Jed Kurzel had in Scott’s prequels), I’m pretty sure he would have delivered.

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