Alien: Romulus director says movie’s scare-heralding phones are a nod to Alien: Isolation

Developer Creative Assembly’s Alien: Isolation is, of course, a stone-cold horror classic, so it only seems right the movie series it’s based on would finally get around to paying it some dues. Which is exactly what Fede Álvarez, the director of new movie Alien: Romulus, has done by sneaking in a whole bunch of Isolation-inspired phones.

As fans of the sci-fi horror masterpiece will already know, telephones play a prominent role in Alien: Isolation, serving as save points scattered intermittently throughout the nail-biting, Xenomorph-dodging adventure. “In the game,” Álvarez told Total Film (via VGC), “every time you knew there’s a phone you’d go, ‘Fuck, I’m about to go into some bad set-piece.'”

And it’s in that spirit Álvarez, tipping his hat to Alien: Isolation, elected to plaster emergency telephones all over his new movie, sneaking them into frame like an omen of imminent horrors to come. “It’s the same thing here,” he continued. “You’ll see they’re planted strategically throughout the film. When you see the phone, it’s like: brace for impact… The movie is set up in a way [that] every time something bad is about to happen, you will see a phone.”

So yes, steel yourself: spot a phone in the background and Randy Pitchford might be about to jump out and announce an Aliens: Colonial Marines 2.

Let’s Play Alien: Isolation Episode 1: SHIPS ARE SPACESHIPS FOR THE SEA

And it seems Álvarez – who also directed 2013’s Evil Dead reboot and 2016’s Don’t Breathe – isn’t just a man of exceptional taste when it comes to games; early word suggests he’s also crafted a fine slice of horror himself with Alien: Romulus. We’ll know if it genuinely does halt the movie series’ decades-long downward spiral when it arrives in cinemas this Friday, 16th August.

And if for some inexplicable – and by this point, almost unforgiveable – reason you’ve yet experience Alien: Isolation’s masterful slice of sci-fi horror, now is as good a time as any: it’s currently discounted by 80 percent on GOG, Steam, Epic, PlayStation, and Xbox.