There are times as horror fans that we crave films that aren't widely praised or even known by a general audience. We tend to have a collector's mind-set when it comes to our watch lists, and there's a satisfaction that comes with embracing a film that feels overlooked. Every Halloween season, we start clamoring to add a new hidden gem.
In Alien: Earth, set two years before the 1979 sci-fi classic Alien, the mega-corporation Prodigy is on the brink of achievingand profiting fromimmortality. The first batch of "immortal" humans are the Lost Boys: terminally ill children whose consciousness are uploaded into artificial, adult-sized bodies. These powerful, literally overgrown kids wind up on the frontlines of humanity's first contact with aliens after a ship containing unknown specimens crashes in southeast Asia.
Babou Ceesay commands attention with his performance as Morrow, a predatory cyborg in Alien: Earth, contrasting with the chaotic creatures around him. His portrayal reflects a thrilling blend of menace and charisma within a sci-fi horror context.
Perhaps the ideal fate for an obscure '80s genre film is to be rereleased as an upgraded 4K Blu-ray from a boutique label; a film's troubled production and imperfect craft are ushered into an alternative canon of reclaimed genre cinema.
