Editorials
Horror Education of the Week: ‘Aliens’
Aliens. The 1986 sequel to Alien. Written and directed by James Cameron, this companion piece equally masters the depth and beauty of the original film.
Our heroine, Ripley, is awakened fifty-seven years after closing her sleep chamber only to learn that a colony has been established on the planet where her alien nemesis was originally found. When all contact is lost, Ripley is asked to join a team to find out the cause. The cause she is almost certain she’s familiar with…
With her experience and knowledge, Ripley leads the Company’s team, headed by administrator Carter Burke, back to LV-426. While Ripley is still strong willed and firm in Aliens, she takes on a new role with which she has to balance her warrior status that we discussed last week. In tune with her character development, we also see a great change with her adversary.
– In Aliens, we see Ripley much like we see the computer, Mother, in the original. She has the wealth of knowledge that is being sought.
– This mothering theme is what pushes Aliens to the next level from the original.
– When asked by Burke to join the team to find out why the colony has lost contact, Ripley, like a mother, makes him promise that the mission is firmly a positive one and that all aliens will be destroyed. And as Burke lies to her that this is indeed the sole purpose, Ripley wants to believe him as any mother would want to believe their child.
– Soon after arriving, only one colonist is found alive. A young girl named Newt.
– Immediately, a bond is formed between Ripley and Newt – Ripley having found out her own daughter had passed away during her years in hypersleep as seen in the “Special Edition” of Aliens.
– The colonists are found cocooned in a nest – all stocked up like canned goods in a bomb shelter.
– As multiple aliens attack the investigating crew, killing them off, Ripley discovers that Burke is responsible for sending the colonists to investigate the derelict ship on LV-426.
– The idea that Bishop, the android, is more human than Burke is something to be noted. Bishop is willing to sacrifice himself for the humans while Burke is willing to sacrifice all humans for the alien.
– Ripley and Newt are almost attacked by facehuggers that Burke purposely lets out of tanks in the medical lab. His plan was to smuggle the alien embryos inside the two females – as they could get past Earth’s quarantine. 
– Newt is captured by the aliens. Again, like a mother, Ripley refuses to leave her. At the same time, she suits up like a warrior to save her.
– After Ripley rescues Newt from the hive, they encounter the Queen in her chamber laying eggs.
– Side note: The amazing visual of this egg chamber would later be echoed in Prometheus – which we will visit in a few weeks!
– Ripley does exactly what the aliens have done to her “children” – the crew she mothered – she destroys the Queen’s eggs.
– Ripley saves Newt as the Queen tears free from her ovipositor and pursues them in rage.
– The Queen, much like the alien in the original film, stows away aboard the dropship’s landing gear, ripping Bishop in half as the remaining survivors try to escape.
– Once again, Ripley displays her hero qualities, suiting up and blasting the last foe into space.
– In the end, Ripley is able to tuck her surrogate daughter into her hypersleep chamber, fully embracing – and balancing – the fact that she is both a mother and a hero.
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
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