Editorials
Have We Closed the Book on ‘Alien Vs. Predator’?
“When I said to [Ridley Scott], ‘You know, Weyland was a character in one of the Alien Vs. Predator movies,’ he just sort of looked at me like I had just slapped him in the face. That was the beginning, middle and end of all Alien Vs. Predator references in our story process.” — Damon Lindeloff
For fans of all things Alien Vs. Predator, the above quote from Prometheus co-writer Damon Lindelof likely sounds the death knell for the continuation of the AVP shared cinematic universe, and perhaps even beyond. Indeed, with Ridley Scott’s return to the franchise he started, and Shane Black looking to the original Predator to re-energize that franchise, neither seem interested in the high-concept crossover anymore. The two monsters appear to have consciously uncoupled, unlikely to share the same screen again.
While your feelings about the dissolution of this marriage depends on your level of devotion to either franchise, I’m happy to consider the AVP movies a fun but failed genre experiment and move on.
Before we close the book, however, let’s take a moment to consider the history of how the Alien and Predator franchises came together, ultimately resulting in two films and a few key references.
A year before Stephen Hopkins’ Predator 2 hit theaters in 1990, Dark Horse comics put the creatures together in a three-issue anthology called “Dark Horse Presents” (#34-36), the final issue of which pit the two in their first official battle.
During the production of Predator 2, effects artists John Rosengrant and Shane Mahan (who had also both worked on James Cameron’s Aliens), came up with the idea to include a Xenomorph skull among the Predator’s hunting trophies when Danny Glover boards the alien ship during the film’s finale.
The inclusion of the Alien skull was meant as an inside joke, similar to how Stephen Spielberg famously included Star Wars references in his early work, but it ignited the imagination of many keen-eyed viewers who, in a pre-Reddit 1990, shared the story of seeing the skull with friends who may have missed it.
I personally remember missing the reference in Predator 2, then, upon hearing the rumor, immediately renting the film again and fast-forwarding to the end of the VHS tape to see for myself.
Here’s that moment:
No doubt, one of the kids whose imaginations were set alight from this crossover was director Paul W.S. Anderson, a self-professed genre nerd, who brought the first AVP film to the screen in 2004.
One of the ways Anderson bridged the franchises was to make the smart decision to include the human counterpart to Aliens‘ android Bishop, Charles Bishop Weyland as played by the same actor, Lance Henriksen. And like in Prometheus, the Weyland in the film is looking for eternal life.
So, while I can understand why Ridley Scott would reject the idea of considering AVP cannon, Lindelof bringing up the connection makes perfect sense to me thematically.
Lance Henriksen as Charles Bishop Weyland in AVP.
Next came the Brothers Strause’s AVP: Requiem, by all accounts a misfire. And while the directors have claimed to be determined to make an AVP 3, now that Scott and Black are driving the respective franchises, I think it’s safe to say the project is unlikely to come together.
It’s worth noting that no film in the Alien franchise contains a reference to the Predator series, while Nimród Antal’s subsequent Predators continues the trend of Predator movies referencing the world of Alien. The references are harder to spot, but many believe that a Xenomorph skull appears at the Predator camp in the film, while characters utter a line verbatim from Aliens (“If the time comes, I’ll do us both”).
Even in the expanded world of comics and novels the Alien Vs. Predator products have either slowed down or become a little… silly. I mean, Dredd has entered the battle at this point just to keep the idea interesting. Don’t get me wrong. I love Aliens, Predators and Dredds, but that stew is a little overwhelming.
So, what do you think? Have we officially closed the book on the AVP cinematic universe? And what hope do you think the concept has overall?
There’s been a lot of talk about how Christopher Nolan snuck in some horror elements into his epic adaptation of The Odyssey. However, even before the Cyclops began to eat Ithican soldiers and Circe subjected them to magical body-horror, cinemagoers were already witnessing supernatural terror through a certain trailer that was attached to most IMAX screenings of Nolan’s film.
It turns out that this trailer was for Rob Savage’s Other Mommy, an adaptation of Bird Box author Josh Malerman’s horror novel, Incidents Around the House. With the teaser now available online and revealing that the award-winning Jessica Chastain is playing the titular antagonist (as well as her ill-fated human counterpart), not to mention the fact that the picture is being helmed by the director of hits like Host and The Boogeyman, genre fans are understandably hyped for this upcoming thriller.
That’s why I’ve decided to take a closer look at the trailer and share four things we learned from this sneak peek at Other Mommy!
4. Rob Savage is Going Back to His Supernatural Horror Roots
I know I’m in the minority when I admit that Dashcam is my favorite Rob Savage movie, but even I understand why the filmmakers’ fans have been waiting a while for the director to get back to telling more grounded paranormal stories as he did with 2020’s Host.
Other Mommy obviously isn’t a found footage movie, but moments like the poltergeist activity on the kitchen table combined with the nature of the source material, which actually features a full-on exorcism, indicate that this adaptation is more than a simple creature feature. That’s why I think Savage is once again going to borrow from the same ghostly narratives that made his debut film such a viral hit.
3. Other Mommy is a More Convincing Doppelganger in the Adaptation
Part of the horror from Malerman’s original novel came from the fact that the entity taking on the form of Bela’s (Arabella Olivia Clark) mother wasn’t very good at passing itself off as human. This resulted in several uncanny moments where other characters began to notice that there was something visibly wrong with the family and decided to keep their distance.
Savage’s film appears to be taking a different route, with the trailer showing a version of the entity that can, at least physically, imitate Chastain’s character perfectly. This change is likely the result of the filmmakers wanting to incorporate more paranoid scenes where Bela and her father, played by Jay Duplass, are confused about which Mommy is safe to interact with.
2. The Family is Also Better Off This Time Around
Incidents Around the House featured some interesting subtext about how poverty can negatively affect American family dynamics. After all, the main characters were already feeling scared and isolated before the entity emerged from Bela’s closet and began scratching at their emotional wounds. The trailer for the movie, however, depicts the family as being relatively well off before these incidents begin to occur.
I can only imagine that this part of the story was changed so that the family’s fall from grace can be even more dramatic as the mom and dad’s pasts are revealed and Bela falls further into the clutches of the demonic antagonist.
1. Jessica Chastain is Embodying Evil Dead Rise’s Alyssa Sutherland
Mothers turning against their children is one of the most disturbing horror tropes out there (just check out classics like Hereditary and Carrie if you need proof), but it takes a remarkably skilled actress to pull off such a monstrous transformation. This is especially true when both a regular, loving mother and the Other share the screen in the same film.
That’s why I appreciate how Chastain appears to be channeling another evil redhead mother that recently traumatized audiences with her performance. It’s too early to be sure, but I’m fairly confident that Chastain’s character has at least some amount of Ellie in her cinematic DNA – Ellie being the iconic deadite brought to life by Australian actress Alyssa Sutherland in 2023’s Evil Dead Rise.
Let us know in the comments if you think we missed any important details from the trailer, and don’t forget to check out Other Mommy when it hits theaters on October 9!
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