Movies
Neill Blomkamp’s ‘Alien 5’ Title Is a Major Spoiler!
I want nothing more than to see Sigourney Weaver return to the Alien franchise for one final battle with the Xenomorphs, but I’m starting to wonder just how real it is.
After Neill Blomkamp’s Internet campaign went viral, Fox was pressured into hiring him to write and direct what will be a direct sequel to James Cameron’s 1986 Aliens. His concept art looks really cool, and the idea that it will take place before Alien3 and Resurrection is a great idea, but Chappie didn’t perform all too well, and wasn’t received well by critics either. Neither was Elysium. By the time Blomkamp actually get his screenplay completed, will Fox still be hot on the project? That’s the question/concern I have going forward.
For now, we’re living in a dream world where Blomkamp will direct Weaver and Michael Biehn to fill in the mysterious gap between Aliens and Alien3.
And being that Aliens was a perfect follow up title to Alien, what would complete that trilogy? Blomkamp teases us…
In an interview with Empire Magazine, when asked if it would be titled Alien 5, he replied, “It’s kinda quite bold, but it gives away too much if I say the title”.
This came from a surprising discussion about his connection to Ridley Scott’s Prometheus and its in-development sequel. Apparently, Blomkamp is being forced to change some of the film’s plot as to not tread on the toes of Scott’s Prometheus 2. While he’s thrilled with the direction of the next Alien, for which he is producing through Scott films, there were some alterations made to avoid conflicts with Prometheus 2.
“I changed the one thing [Ridley Scott] felt was bumping Prometheus a little bit,” said Blomkamp.
In terms of the timeline, it will follow Aliens, mostly because the other sequels left a bad taste in his mouth.
“Where it went after Aliens to me, as a fan, was wrong.”
The new film will be “the triplet of the first two,” he added. “There’s a shitload missing as a fan that I would want to see.”
For those of you keeping up, what are your thoughts overall? What do you want out of the sequel? Do you like Blomkamp’s work? Are you excited, concerned? Tell us below.
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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