Alien: Romulus pays tribute to Alien Isolation with a telephone easter egg, director says

The latest movie in the Alien series pays tribute to the 2014 game Alien Isolation, according to the film’s director.

In an interview on the Total Film podcast (via GamesRadar), Alien: Romulus director Fede Álvarez explained that he placed a telephone in certain scenes of the movie as an homage to Creative Assembly‘s game.

According to Álvarez, the use of telephones as save points in the game always made him feel nervous, because he knew that everytime he saw one it meant something dangerous was about to happen.

As a result, he decided to insert an easter egg into the movie, placing a telephone in certain scenes before something scary happens.

“The movie is set up in a way [that] every time something bad is about to happen, you will see a phone,” he explained.

“In the game, every time you knew there’s a phone you’d go ‘fuck, I’m about to go into some bad set-piece’. It’s the same thing here.

“You’ll see they’re planted strategically throughout the film. When you see the phone, it’s like, brace for impact.”

Álvarez also credit Alien Isolation for making him realise that it was possible to still make Alien scary in the present day, and made him want to take on an Alien project himself.

“Alien: Isolation was kind of what made me see that Alien could truly be terrifying and done well [today],” he said.

“I played a few years after it came out. Don’t Breathe was coming out. Or was I waiting for Don’t Breathe to come out, and I was playing the game.

“That’s why, at the time, I was like, ‘fuck, if I could do anything, I would love to do Alien and scare the audience again with that creature and those environments’. I was playing, and realising how terrifying Alien could be if you take it back to that tone.”

Alien: Romulus is the seventh main entry in the Alien series, and is set to release on August 16.