WARNING: This article contains SPOILERS for Alien: Romulus
Summary
WhileAlien: Romulusfeatures a lot of gory deaths, theAlienreboot’s nastiest moment continues a surprising trend from the director’s earlier hit.TheAlienmoviesare not known for pulling their punches, but some of the franchise’s offerings are nastier than others. The secondAlien Vs Predatormovie,Aliens Vs Predator: Requiem, featured an infamous sequence in which a Xenomorph attacked a maternity ward full of pregnant people. This was one of the most mean-spirited moments in the series, although some reviewers accused the sequel of confusing excessive shock value and gross-out gore with tension and scares.
8 Biggest Alien Lore Reveals In Alien: Romulus
Alien: Romulus draws a ton from its predecessors, but it also builds upon the Alien franchise lore with plenty of exciting new reveals.
Alien: Romulus’ Kay Death Sees Fede Alvarez Subvert A Horror Trope (Again)
Pregnant Characters Are Often Spared In Horror Movies
Almost all ofAlien: Romulus’ characters die, but the most surprising death in the entire movie is the fate of Isabela Merced’s Kay. The pregnant Kay is put through the wringer throughoutAlien: Romulus. She is knocked out, attacked by a Xenomorph, cocooned, injected with an experimental serum, and finally killed after giving birth to a human/ Xenomorph hybrid. Bizarrely,Alien: Romulus’ Kay death isn’t the first time Fede Alvarez’s movie killed off a pregnant character, despite how rare this twist is in the world of horror movies. Even gruesome, downbeat horrors likeEvil Dead Riseusually let pregnant people survive.
However, Alvarez didn’t spare the pregnant character in his earlier 2016 horror hit,Don’t Breathe.Don’t BreatheandAlien: Romulus’ plot similaritiesare self-evident, as both movies follow morally ambiguous, desperate young antiheroes who sneak into a shady location to set up a better life for themselves, only to be picked off by an unexpected enemy. The strangest similarity between the two movies is their treatment of pregnant supporting characters. InDon’t Breathe, a captive woman is impregnated and accidentally shot moments later. In contrast,Alien: Romulus’s pregnant Kay almost makes it to the end of the movie.
Kay’s Alien: Romulus Death Is Worse Than Don’t Breathe’s Similar Scene
Kay’s Fate Is Painfully Drawn Out
Don’t Breathe’s minor supporting character, Cindy, undergoes a brutal ordeal at the hands of the movie’s villain, but her eventual demise is relatively quick and sudden. In contrast, Kay’sAlien: Romulusdeath is arguably more drawn out than most of the franchise’s deaths and is as hard to watch as theoriginalAlien’s chest-burster scene. Kay makes it through an encounter with the Xenomorph, but the odds of her survival steadily decline from there. Although theAlienreboot’s heroine is doomed once she injects the serum, Kay’s blood loss makes it seem like theAlien: Romulusheroine could not have survived her ordeal either way.
