Alien’s superb, nerve-shredding prequel will rescue the franchise

Ridley Scott’s original Alien was as lean and relentless as the phallic nightmare that vaulted free of John Hurt’s chest during 1970s cinema’s ultimate brunch from hell. But its very perfection was also a curse, with subsequent entries in the series going off half-cocked by comparison (James Cameron’s gung-ho Aliens from 1986 being the honourable exception).

That sorry decline is now reversed spectacularly with Noah Hawley’s gripping small-screen spin-off Alien: Earth (Disney +). Scary, action-packed and often grotesque, it is infused with the bleak spirit of the Ridley Scott blockbuster while refusing to be overawed by it.

The big leap taken by writer and showrunner Hawley is to imagine a universe where HR Giger’s infamous Xenomorph is just one killer species among many. Giger’s monstrosity might be the deadliest in the known universe, but it certainly isn’t the most repulsive. That fact is quickly made clear as the crew of deep space research vessel Maginot are woken mid-voyage to find that someone has set free a consignment that includes horrific interstellar spiders and a sociopathic eyeball with tentacles straight out of a Freudian nightmare.

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As per the show’s title, the cargo eventually reaches Earth (the viewer can guess how things work out for the astronauts), crashing into a shopping mall in a futuristic Bangkok. By sheer coincidence, the city lies within the domain of tech bro man-child Boy Kavalier (Samuel Blenkin).

He has been busy creating spooky lifeforms of his own – semi-robotic “hybrids” whose human consciousness has been implanted into super-powered new bodies. Kavalier’s subjects are vulnerable children whom he has helped “transition” – Hawley’s word – without their having fully appreciated what they are signing up for.

Guinea-pig number one is Wendy (all of the hybrids are re-named after the “lost children” from Peter Pan). She is played with a creepy blank grin by Sydney Chandler (daughter of Kyle), and even up against Xenomorphs and the killer eyeball, is the scariest thing here. She radiates childlike innocence while moving like an oversized mantis about to bite your head off.

Hawley is less successful is in his attempt to portray Kavalier as an amoral blend of Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk – largely because he bears a strong resemblance to a young Richard Hammond from Top Gear.

Timothy Olyphant as Kirsh: ‘a dead ringer for Rutger Hauer’s Roy Batty in Blade Runner’ - FX/Patrick Brown

Alien: Earth is many Alien movies at once – combining Cameron-levels of mayhem with the sweltering dread of David Fincher’s underrated Alien 3. For good measure, Hawley also borrows from Scott’s other masterpiece, Blade Runner, in his depiction of a future dystopian world ruled by mega-corporations (including Kavalier’s Prodigy Corp). To hammer home the parallels, Timothy Olyphant, as Kavalier’s robot henchman, is a dead ringer for Rutger Hauer’s Roy Batty in Blade Runner, down to his bleached punk-rocker hair.

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The series is at its best, though, when it is its own thing. Scenes in which Wendy and the other “Lost Children” are left to wander Kavalier’s labs and its freshly obtained trove of aliens are supremely tense. And when things finally spin out of control, the plunge into jump-scares and body horror is nerve-shredding and stomach-turning.

That mix of new and familiar is on brand for Hawley. He is perhaps best known for imagining the Coen brothers noir favourite Fargo as a TV anthology with stand-alone storylines that honoured the spirit of the movie. Nor does he forget fans of the original Alien: a flashback episode is essentially a highly-stylised remake of the film, complete with blinking red lights and things that go bump in the air vents.

He has, in other words, done a remarkable job of retaining the look and atmosphere of a sci-fi classic while taking the story in a different direction – a mash-up that makes Alien: Earth feel like the best sort of homecoming.

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Alien: Earth is on Disney+ from Wednesday 13 August

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