Movies
[Sundance Review] ‘Memory: The Origins of Alien’ Offers Fans of the 1979 Classic a Remarkable Amount of Insight
Fans of Alexandre O. Philippe‘s brilliant 78/52 – in which the director spends ninety minutes obsessing over the two-minute shower scene in Hitchcock‘s Psycho – won’t be surprised to learn that there’s a remarkable amount of insight to be gained from Memory: The Origins of Alien, which has Philippe turning his laser focus onto the infamous chestburster scene in Ridley Scott‘s Alien. While a lesser film would merely examine the scene’s groundbreaking special effects and camera work, Philippe takes us on a philosophical journey from the Greek furies to Francis Bacon, from Lovecraft to Chron’s disease.
“I didn’t steal from anyone – I stole from everyone.” That’s late Alien screenwriter Dan O’Bannon, whose widow and colleagues spend much of Memory marveling over the depths of the well he drew from to create the indelible world of the Nostromo – and the alien Derelict that proves to be its ruin. We see how comics like Weird Science‘s “Seeds of Jupiter” and films like Roger Corman‘s Queen of Blood influenced O’Bannon’s screenplay (originally born as a 25-page fragment titled “Memory”), and those images projected side-by-side with Scott’s finished film are certainly eye-opening and fun to watch.
But what makes Memory an absolutely crucial entry in the about-Alien canon is the way it lovingly demonstrates the alchemical creative process among O’Bannon, Scott and artist H.R. Giger. Through old interview clips, behind-the-scenes footage, concept art and talking-head criticism, Memory reveals something of a hive mind invention of the Xenomorph, a weird, magical group-think made up of Giger’s highly sexualized, biomechanical designs, Scott’s research into parasitic wasps and O’Bannon’s Lovecraftian fear of the unknown.
[Related] Read all of our Sundance reviews and coverage here!
With Alien celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, four decades as one of the best-loved and most influential sci-fi horror films of all time, is there anything new to learn for diehard fans who have consumed every piece of ancillary media the film has inspired? That’s where Philippe’s singular approach comes in: as with 78/52, by zeroing in on a specific scene, he manages to tell a much bigger story. An enormous amount of Memory‘s screentime is dedicated to the moment the infant Xenomorph explodes its way out of Kane’s abdomen, interrupting the Nostromo’s cozy family dinner and introducing a murderous, nearly-unkillable specimen into the crew’s home away from home. We see every exacting moment of planning that went into this scene: the philosophy, the design, the storyboards, the puppetry, Scott’s shot logic. We hear how the scene felt in the moment from actors Veronica Cartwright and Tom Skerritt. We’re told how audiences reacted when the film hit theaters and listen to film historians discuss the scene’s influence all these years later.
But in Philippe’s deft hands, none of that feels rote or academic. It’s part of an elegant mythology that starts in ancient Delphi and continues today, a unique mixture of narrative, scientific, artistic and emotional ingredients swirling around in the “Cauldron of Story,” a sort of universal imagination-soup that Tolkien coined and Memory references more than once. When Alexandre O. Philippe makes a movie about a movie, it goes far beyond the Wikipedia references and on-set anecdotes that form the foundation of so many other film documentaries. He dives with gleeful abandon into the doctrine of the film, its ideology, the impossible-to-replicate magic that makes up its storytelling. With Memory, Philippe brings us not only into the minds but the hearts of three brilliant men who created a world that moved us all.
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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