With Alien: Romulus currently terrorising audiences, here are ten Alien knock-offs to watch if you love the franchise…
The Alien franchise is a pretty eclectic mix, made up of distinct stabs at effectively the same concept repeated. A group of largely disposable humans are hunted and picked off by a fearsome alien creature (or multiple). The first two films in particular were so popular and successful in their own respective ways that they spawned innumerable imitators as well as the desire from the studio to keep on going back to that Xenomorph well, right up to this year’s Alien: Romulus and its already-announced sequel.
An Alien(s) ripoff is a magical thing with the output ranging from legitimately great, to downright awful (but sometimes brilliantly so). Here are ten Alien franchise rip-offs you definitely need to see.
Species
Species dropped in the mid-90s with a heady mix of exploitation cinema, derivative Sci-fi and the magnificent Natasha Henstridge. It certainly owed a big debt to Alien with the notion of a creature constantly looking for human hosts to breed, but whilst the Facehuggers did the work terrifyingly in Alien(s), Henstridge does the dirty in a far more aesthetically pleasing manner, particularly for the teen version of me who first watched it (repeatedly) on VHS.
It’s a schlocky and daft B movie but it’s also very well made and has a cast that’s ridiculously impressive for such a movie. Ben Kingsley, Michael Madsen (before he starred in everything put in front of him), Forest Whitaker, Albert Molina, Michelle Williams and Marg Helgenberger all share the screen but Henstridge is the star. And if you’re wondering what she’s up to lately, she just starred in my film Cinderella’s Revenge as the Fairy Godmother (and she steals the movie of course). Shameless plug over, and another reason Species is a hit is thanks to creature design from H.R Geiger who of course infamously designed the iconic Xenomorphs.
Screamers
Screamers is a great slice of B movie fun starring Peter Weller. It’s an Aliens riff with a Military unit stumbling on a compound ravaged by an initially unseen force. It soon becomes apparent that robots built to ward off the enemy have become sentient and gone rogue. Hunkered down in the compound, Weller’s unit starts getting picked off when the fortress is breached and the true horror of the screamers is revealed.
Very loosely based (like most adaptations) on a Philip K. Dick story, Screamers was the atypical mid-90s rental hit that provided undemanding entertainment in style. Some ropey special effects aside, it’s directed with verve by Christian Duguay (and remains by a long way his best film). If you’re looking for another Alien link the film was written by Dan O’Bannon who wrote Ridley Scott’s franchise OG.
Alien Predators
Shameless rip-offs aren’t an Asylum creation. They’ve been going on for decades and in the 80s a mass of low-rent and meagre-budget films made in Europe or Asia were churned out. Alien Predators was one such. Originally titled The Falling, it was later rebranded with its impressively cheeky title which sought to tailgate two franchises (which ended up converging of course).
Alien Predators does have an alien creature but the film ends up skewing into something more in the Mad Max and Escape From New York realm with mutants for good measure. It’s ridiculous and trashy with ropey dubbing but it’s also a lot of fun, directed by Deran Sarafian, who not long after made Death Warrant before a long and impressive career directing high-end TV shows.
Terminator II
Whilst Alien Predators didn’t quite toe the line of the franchise titles it pilfered, Terminator II (no, not that one) took a title and took an unexpected path with it. Yes, 1989’s Terminator II feels very much like a riff on both Alien and Predator as much as anything. That said, there are very direct references to James Cameron’s Terminator as well, so they don’t entirely leave their title at the door.
Again, the cynical title of this Italiansploitation classic (directed by Bruno Mattei) was a rebrand later for the film that has also been known as Shocking Dark, Alien 2, Alienators and Contaminator depending on the territory and release time. It’s a brilliantly bad film well worth checking out, with the right amount of inebriation.
D.N.A
Ripoff the Alien creature designs and the original Predator’s plot and setting and you get D.N.A, a silly but solid Sci-fi action film starring Mark Dacascos (who always elevates his B movies) and Jurgen Prochnow (who chews scenery). Visual FX maestro William Mesa turned his hand to directing here (not for the first time) and managed to eek a lot out of the film’s low budget, making it look well beyond its means.
It’s way too derivative to be objectively good, but as the kind of thing you’d have grabbed from a bottom shelf at Blockbusters on a Friday night, accompanied with beers, it does the job beautifully. The CGI wasn’t brilliant then and has dated but the film has some great practical work and plenty of pyrotechnic carnage in it too.
Pitch Black
Pitch Black definitely owed a lot to Aliens but David Twohy’s film, which made Vin Diesel a star, is one of the best Aliens formula films out there. It belies its low budget with style and a nice concept with the killer aliens only appearing at night as a planet aligns for a permanent eclipse. The presence of Diesel as a dangerous prisoner who becomes the only hope for the transporting settlers is also a great touch.
Diesel revels in that brooding role, stealing the film to such a degree Richard B. Riddick became a franchise. At the heart of everything in Pitch Black is an interesting mixture of characters and Radha Mitchell’s journey as Carolyn also gives us a compelling lead to root for.
Xtro
It’s an absolute mess of ideas smashed together without much coherence, but boy is Xtro a rollercoaster ride of craziness. Coming during an era of creatively ambitious, underfunded and haphazard British horrors, attempting to coattail Hollywood trends the film takes a measly budget but still opts for the more is more approach.
Director Harry Bromley Davenport makes a basic premise complicated by never effectively setting out the rules of the world. In Alien it’s clear what the creatures can do, how they defend themselves, and its simple goal. Here, we get all sorts happening from object manipulation to a birth scene that outdoes even Men. Every practical effect is ragged but despite all of this, these flaws amalgamate to make something wildly enjoyable.
Leviathan
Peter Weller is here once again giving us Alien(s) underwater, with Leviathan. 1989 was certainly an interesting year in terms of horror-tinged underwater Sci-fi creature features with no less than three established directors going under the depths with James Cameron’s The Abyss, Sean Cunningham’s Deepstar Six and this from George P. Cosmatos.
Every film underwhelmed and had issues and whilst The Abyss is the most technically honed and thematically compelling. That is despite there not being a version between the theatrical and director’s cut that really nails the final act landing. Leviathan is much more firmly grounded in B movie creature feature tropes. It’s got enough of a budget to look grand when it needs to and impressive when some gruesome practical FX are required. Then there’s the sturdy and charismatic presence of Peter Weller who became a prolific and reliable as hell lead in genre pictures in the decade after RoboCop. Arguably not getting the kinds of projects he deserved.
Starship Troopers
Speaking of RoboCop, Paul Verhoeven dipped his hand into mercs murdered by aliens with Starship Troopers a film that had a very strange time in its box office run. It started okay and seemingly died a death off the back of negative reviews. However, the buzz began to turn in time for its home release and it quickly gained a cult following (enough to spawn a franchise).
It felt like satire historically took a while to hit with critics at the end of the 20th Century, with most of Verhoeven’s hits gaining status after the fact (although RoboCop and Total Recall were far more financially successful). The guy has often been ahead of the curve. Starship Troopers laser pointer jibes did repeat some of the same observations he had in RoboCop but the satirical swings of his scythe certainly feel as relevant now as ever. Maybe critics expected more from the throughline, which at its heart was only ever supposed to tread firmly in the arena of B picture homage.
The short version is: Starship Troopers is great, with a cast mixing up-and-coming pretty people of the era like Casper Van Dien, Dina Meyer and Denise Richards with seasoned character actors like Michael Ironside and Clancy Brown.
Forbidden World
It would be remiss of me not to include a Roger Corman Aliens knockoff and the late great B movie legend’s entry here is Forbidden World which sees humans on a distant planet called Xarbia, creating a mutant creature that goes out of control.
Forbidden World is that curio film that has a low budget, but just enough pennies efficiently scraped together to show off some impressive production values. Creature FX are a mixed bag but a flawed practical beats a serviceable CGI creation every day of the week. Here’s one thing that is consistent throughout this whole list of Alien knockoffs… the sheer home run genius of Geiger’s designs and the exceptional delivery from the Alien crew to realise it, show just how iconic the Xenomorph (and indeed the face huggers) truly is. No one has come close. Creating an effective monster is one thing. Creating something legendary is quite the other. Forbidden World doesn’t manage that, but the film is still well worth checking out for all its Cormanistic charm.
What’s your favourite Alien franchise knockoff? Let us know on our social channels @FlickeringMyth…
Tom Jolliffe