Michael Fassbender Promises a ‘Super Scary’ ‘Alien: Covenant’

Looking back, I’m not really sure there was ever a winning proposition for Ridley Scott’s Prometheus. The stakes were high enough when we only thought that Prometheus was a big-budget science-fiction movie for one of the genre’s great pioneers; once we learned that Prometheus would also serve as a prequel of sorts to the Alien universe, the film never stood a chance. Of course, Prometheus did not do itself any favors by awkwardly tying together Alien mythology with Interstellar-esque futurism, but maybe in a few years we’ll look back on the film with a little more fondness.

One thing’s for certain, though: Ridley and company are doing their best to make the next movie in the series the Alien prequel we had all previously been hoping for. This afternoon, Collider spoke with Prometheus and Alien: Covenant star Michael Fassbender about the direction of the new film, and Fassbender pointed out that the new movie is going to be scary. Really, really scary.

This Alien is going to be… I’m very excited to see it and everybody in the film was saying this is a film that we all want to see. It’s much scarier than Prometheus but it’s got the same sort of scope of Prometheus. It’s kind of got more of the sort of thriller, imminent disaster feel that Alien had, so it’s kind of a beautiful meeting of both of those films. I’m really excited to see it, I think it’s gonna be super scary number one and then again with the massive scope of Prometheus… Once it starts and the ball starts rolling, it doesn’t let up. It’s really gonna bring chills to the cinema.

Those hoping for the claustrophobic horror of the original Alien film are probably going to be disappointed by the fact that Fassbender describes the movie as having “the same sort of scope of Prometheus,” but that’s not exactly surprising. While Scott has never shied away from disturbing material — few scenes in movie history still make me as unsettled as the Bolito sequence in The Counselor — he has never really expressed an interest in straight-forward horror, preferring instead to bring together different genres and aspects of science-fiction in his films. Now that we’ve had a little time to adjust to the new direction for Scott’s franchise, a blend of what worked in both Prometheus and Alien might actually be an intriguing recipe for success. Either way, it still has to be better than those Aliens vs. Predator films, right? Right.

For a quick refresher on some of the plot details for Alien: Covenant, be sure to check out our Alien: Covenant archive. The film brings back Michael Fassbender and Noomi Rapace, as well as newcomer Katherine Waterston, and will be released in theaters on August 4, 2017.