Fede Alvarez's critically-acclaimed Alien: Romulus is now in theaters, and we're breaking down some of the movie's biggest moments and surprises - including what might be one of the most gruesome, relentless, and flat out insane endings of the entire franchise.
Major spoilers follow.
After losing half of the Corbelan's crew to the Xenomorphs, Rain and Andy - who has been given a new prime directive by the Romulus' android science office, Rook - decide to get the severely injured and pregnant Kay back to the cryotubes and attempt to escape the rapidly crashing station.
Andy is incapacitated and left behind, and when Rain returns to help her "brother," a fading Kay injects herself with the Prometheus 5 formula to keep herself alive.
Rain and Andy manage to kill or evade the remaining Xenos and make it back to the drop-ship, but what was shaping up to be a happy ending for our surviving heroes takes a dark turn when Kay begins to convulse before giving birth to a human/alien hybrid.
Named "The Offspring" in the credits, this rather terrifying creature does look a lot better than the albino monstrosity from Alien: Resurrection, but taking a page out of one of the least popular movies in the franchise by introducing another hybrid is certainly... a choice.
To be fair, some intense scenes follow, as the Offspring first slices open Andy's throat and then proceeds to murder his own mother (told you things get bleak). Fortunately, Rain is able to defeat the monster by using its own acidic amniotic fluid to burn a hold in the ship's floor and blast it into space.
The last survivor of the Corbelan then removes Andy's chip, promising to fix him once they reach Yvaga.
What did you make of the decision to introduce a new hybrid? Let us know in the comments section down below.
"Not a perfect organism, but despite an overreliance on retreading over old ground, Alien: Romulus does mark a thrilling return to form, and is surely destined to be ranked as the third-best Alien movie," we said when summing up our review.
"The sci-fi/horror-thriller takes the phenomenally successful Alien franchise back to its roots: While scavenging the deep ends of a derelict space station, a group of young space colonizers come face to face with the most terrifying life form in the universe."
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. Fede Alvarez (Evil Dead, Don’t Breathe) directs from a screenplay he wrote with frequent collaborator Rodo Sayagues (Don’t Breathe 2) based on characters created by Dan O’Bannon and Ronald Shusett.
Alien: Romulus is produced by Ridley Scott (Napoleon), who directed the original Alien and produced and directed the series’ entries Prometheus and Alien: Covenant, Michael Pruss (Boston Strangler), and Walter Hill (Alien), with Fede Alvarez, Elizabeth Cantillon (Charlie’s Angels), Brent O’Connor (Bullet Train), and Tom Moran (Unstoppable) serving as executive producers.