Fede Álvarez Says Practical Effects Made His Nightmares Real in 'Alien: Romulus' | THR Video
'Alien: Romulus' director Fede Álvarez's horror films are usually a realistic documentation of his own worst nightmares. He says 2024 audiences prefer practical effects over "CGI monsters," and that they pulled all the punches to make his nightmare real, not only on the big screen, but on the set as well.
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00:00You've said your horror movies are made up of your worst nightmares.
00:04Which of those will we see on screen in this movie?
00:07Well, today you'll see my biggest nightmares because
00:11just Alien has always been the scariest movie ever for me,
00:14so to be able to go into that world and bring it to a new generation
00:19and bring it to life in a way that it's never been brought to life before
00:22and it's such a realistic and almost documentary way,
00:25you'll see it's really the things that made all my nightmares.
00:29So that's what's going to happen today.
00:32There are so many practical effects in this film.
00:34Why was it important for you to lean in to doing practical effects in this movie?
00:38Well, I think what's important to me is what I think is important for the audience.
00:42And I think the masses out there and the audience that loves these movies particularly,
00:46they really prefer to see the practical effects.
00:48They really want to see something that feels real, that feels grounded.
00:52And so we went above and beyond in a really hard way because it's so difficult.
00:57I can't explain to you how difficult it is to do it this way.
00:59Obviously, it's easier to just shoot an empty space and get some CG creature later on.
01:04We didn't do that. We just went all the way to create creatures with the technology of today, right?
01:09With the philosophy of the old movies but with technology of today
01:13to create something that people don't see on screen every day.