How ‘Alien: Romulus’ DP Galo Olivares Captured That Gruesome Chestbursting Scene

SPOILER ALERT: This article discusses plot points in “ Alien: Romulus ,” now playing in theaters.

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In case you haven’t heard, Fede Álvarez’s “Alien: Romulus” is terrifying, and yes, it does feature a chestbursting scene.

But this is Álvarez, the director behind “Don’t Breathe” and the “Evil Dead” reboot. Not only is it terrifying, but his take on the iconic chestbursting scene is bloodier.

Joining Variety’s Inside the Frame , cinematographer Galo Olivares shared the one directive he had from Álvarez for the film. “Go up to see what is going on; react to the scene,” Olivares said. “It was pretty straightforward. It was no tricks… as if we were documenting something.”

Moments earlier, Andy (David Jonsson), Tyler (Archie Renaux) and Bjorn (Spike Fearn) are searching for fuel for their cryo chambers and accidentally trigger an emergency lockdown, which traps them in a section of the ship. Unbeknownst to them, dozens of facehuggers are nearby, and as temperatures increase, they are awoken. The trio successfully escapes just as Rain (Cailee Spaeny) and Navarro (Aileen Wu) come to their rescue. But a chase ensues and Navarro isn’t so lucky. She falls prey to a facehugger as it latches onto her. Using some fuel from their cryo chambers, they freeze its tail and free Navarro. But something isn’t right. As Navarro runs into the cockpit, she grabs an X-ray stick and realizes something is moving inside her.

Olivares explains pulling it off was a complex task because everything was happening in the cockpit of the Corbelan ship, and it was built to scale.

“Fede wanted it to feel like a utility vehicle because they work in the mines,” Olivares explained. “It was so small. I remember seeing the mockup of the cockpit and I said, “Jesus Christ. No one is going to fit here.'” Álvarez insisted though, wanting to keep everything look as real as possible.

In the end, 10 people were working confined to that 3×3 space, including the chestburster puppeteer and Wu.

As everything is happening with Navarro, the shuttle loses control and is on a collision course with a space station.

The set was built on a gimbal which allowed for the out-of-control effect, and Olivares built a large lighting rig outside that needed to work for everything while they’re on that shuttle.

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“We had the best gaffer Krisztian Paluch who did ‘Dune’ and ‘Terminator,'” Olivares explained. “The Corbelan crashes, all those lights were not going to be there at the end of the scene, but we started shooting, and it was like, ‘You can’t take this out.’ It gives this frenetic thing. In the end, we loved it.”

The rig was connected to a console that, according to Olivares, provided endless possibilities to light the film.

The chestburster was a practical effect made by Alec Gillis and his team. “There were three little guys, and they injected ink…and there was the rig of the legs,” Olivares said. “It was crazy.”

As previously discussed , Wu lay in a hole in the ground with a fake floor built for her and with a very big piece attached to her collarbone. “For that one, there was a lever that was attached to a hydro pump and it would pop open,” she said. “The chest was hollow, and they would put the little chestburster puppet through the fake chest and it would come out.”

The entire sequence took over a week to shoot with Olivares figuring out how to make it look and feel real. He captured Navarro’s fate on Arri aspherical lenses. “We started with wider lenses, but as the movie goes on we started going tighter and tighter,” he explained. “I don’t usually use longer lenses, so my longer lens was 75mm at some point. The aspect ratio was 2.39:1 on the aspherical lens.”

With “Alien” shooting on anamorphic lenses and “Aliens” on aspherical, the mix Olivares and Álvarez settled on was “the perfect balance” visually to plant the film where it belongs in the franchise between those two films.

As for capturing Navarro’s fate, Olivares did go back and watch the first film to “bring things we already know, but I just tried to leave it there for what they were and make it our own.”

Another influence was the video game, “Alien “Isolation.” “Fede loved that, so we brought a lot of things from that because it’s amazing — the tension.” He continued, “At some point [in the film], you feel like you’re in a video game, this first-person feeling lost in the video game, it’s that.”

Watch the video above.

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