In celebration of the recent streaming series, Alien: Earth (whether you enjoyed it or not), I have created a new list of films that most certainly exist in the Weyland-Yutani universe, and if not certainly, then enjoy an unbelievably tenuous link to it.

This will be an ordered list of sixteen films, four a week, in reverse order, and is guaranteed to enrage you. The Alien and Predator films, and all those in between, are beloved by some, held sacred by a few, and the subjects of intense debate. My opinions will most certainly not align with yours, but I hope to keep you guessing as to my top four!

#8 – AvP: Alien vs Predator (2004)

Strong link, or tenuous as all hell? Super duper strong.

What’s the link? It has a Weyland in it (more on this later).

What’s it all about? (Alec Guinness voice) “Paul W.S. Anderson… now that’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time… a long time…”*

I told you we weren’t done with Mr. Anderson, and here he is again, surprisingly high up on this list with AvP. P.W.S.A. gets a bad rap, and it’s mostly deserved, but I have certainly enjoyed some of his output, including the first Mortal Kombat flick (1995), the first Resident Evil flick (2002), and the genuinely brilliant, and criminally overlooked horror, Event Horizon (1997). One has to suspect that much of the snarkiness directed his way is through jealousy of him ending up with Mila Jojovich, but I digress.

The success of the Alien vs Predator comics and video games, fueled by the excitement caused by a fun easter egg in Predator 2 (1990), soon gestated into a movie concept, and subsequently this slice of fried gold. I have a lot of time for AvP — it didn’t promise anything other than the full-on ding-dong us nerds had been clamoring for, and it refuses to get deep about anything other than the shaft our hapless characters slide down as they face first eggs, then hugs, then death.

Watching this again recently, I was surprised how much I enjoyed it. Sure, the characters bring nothing new to the game, and it is slightly tamer than some might have preferred, but it is a fun time, with a couple of stand-out set pieces mostly glued together with great practical effects and some iffy CG.

Taking much of its inspiration from Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness, this one tells the story of Charles Weyland, super-rich industrialist and amateur explorer, who has discovered an ancient structure beneath the ice (actually in Norway), and assembles a team of scientists, geologists and general fodder to go have a poke around.

You’ll never guess what happens.

If, like me, you are confused by this Weyland possibly contradicting Guy Pierce’s Weyland from Prometheus, fret not. Some fab fan digging has proven that this one (the Lance Henrikson variety) can be the Promethean Weyland’s dad, so that’s okay. I dig the fighting, love the unique predator and xenomorph designs, and especially enjoyed Sanaa Lathan as Lex Woods, mountaineering guide and all-round badass. AvP is daft and fun in equal quantities, and sometimes that’s all I want.

7/10

*a couple of weeks

#7 – Alien: Covenant (2017)

Strong link, or tenuous as all hell? No debate.

What’s the link? It’s an Alien film, plus it follows on from Prometheus, which had a Weyland in it.

What’s it all about? Poor old Sir Ridders. He must have recoiled at the criticism his first prequel garnered and figured he would give the whingers what they want. He still wanted to see David’s story continue though, this time making him less Friedrich Nietzsche and more Victor Frankenstein. Oh, and there was no way he could allow his team of scientists and settlers to make sensible decisions.

In true Alien style, a favourite female character is killed offscreen, but he does make up for this by incinerating James Franco within the first ten minutes, so some semblance of balance is restored. Once again a group of unwary space-farers are duped by a nefarious synthetic, however this time we get some classic xenomorphs bunged into the mix, and we do indeed get some lovely and ghastly chaos, elevated by a decent cast, not least the ever-reliable Billy Crudup as a reality-challenged vice-captain.

This one gets a higher than expected rating from me purely because I always have a good time watching it. I enjoy David’s shenanigans, whether he is siccing his creations on the fodder or teaching Walter how to ‘finger,’ I love the excessiveness of the gore and the effects in general, and I think the score kicks all manner of arse.

I’m in two minds over whether I want a third entry in this prequel series. I do enjoy watching Fassbender, but I think his android arc is quite sufficient. Anyway, there’s another prequel that needs to be discussed…

7/10

#6 – Alien: Romulus (2024)

Strong link, or tenuous as all hell? Must I continue?

What’s the link? Weyland-Yutani have their grubby mitts all over this — from an ill-advised salvage operation, to exploiting their workers, and losing a vast research station.

What’s it all about? A gaggle of afore-mentioned exploited workers, youngsters no less, snatch an opportunity to escape the mining planet they are tied to. Unfortunately, the abandoned research station they choose to steal some batteries from used to belong to Weyland-Yutani, whose scientists had rather foolishly recovered the OG xenomorph from the remains of the Nostromo a short while back, and who now lay scattered around in various states of death.

An accident wakes up a scuttling congregation of facehuggers, and soon the plucky youths are fighting for their lives. I was a huge fan of director Fede Álvarez’s Evil Dead Rise, and he knocked it out of the park with the set pieces and general sense of dread in this film.

That’s not to say that it is a wholly original venture. Romulus shares many a beat with the original Alien, and its chaotic sibling, Aliens, but this familiarity promotes comfort rather than breeding contempt, and makes this film the comfy slippers and pipe of the franchise. I liked most of the characters, especially Cailee Spaeny’s Rain and Isabela Merced’s Kay, and even though it took a couple of watches, I appreciated David Jonsson’s subtly brilliant portrayal of Andy, the conflicted android.

It’s not all roses and sunshine though. I wasn’t a fan of the uncanny Ian Holm reconstruction (though the difference is stark when viewing the revised version on TV), and thought it unnecessary. Also, the whole ending sequence, though gloriously perverse and grotesque, reminded me too much of Alien Resurrection’s ‘newborn’ sequence, but again I have since warmed to it.

All in all, a fun time, and I would be very happy to see the further adventures of a girl and her droid.

8/10

#5 – Underwater (2020)

Strong link, or tenuous as all hell? Super dodgy, but I don’t care.

What’s the link? It is suggested that Weyland-Yutani is funding the undersea research.

What’s it all about? A deep-sea drilling facility owned by Tian Industries (allegedly, more on this later) is rocked by a seabed earthquake and suffers catastrophic damage. The small crew, led by Vincent Cassel’s Captain Lucien, are thwarted in their attempt to use the escape pod system, and so gather some more crew members as they make for a second station that should have some working lifeboats.

The engineer for this team is the somewhat introverted Norah, played by Kirsten Stewart in the throes of her ascension as an actor to take seriously. No nonsense Norah soon has to take charge after Lucien ends up swimming with the fishes, but even her stoicism isn’t enough to prevent her crewmates becoming fishfood for an ill-tempered race of aquatic humanoids, woken by the quake. The story then becomes a claustrophobic race for survival against a crumbling infrastructure and a ravenous species.

This one is considered a box-office bomb, unfairly so (but you can’t deny the numbers), but I get the sense that it is finally finding an appreciative audience. It’s a tight, uncomfortable, and above all moist, experience, and I’ve enjoyed every rewatch. Especially since the director, William Eubank, panders to my Mythos obsession.

Oh, and you may be wondering what the W-Y connection is. Well, in one scene, Captain Lucien is wearing a bit of kit with a very visible Weyland-Yutani symbol emblazoned on the strap. A fun little easter egg? No doubt. But surely such a massive corporation, with its fingers in so many sticky pies, must have had one digit buried in a spot of deep sea research? Oh crikey, do I need to go watch The Abyss again?

9/10

Previous Murky Movie surveys from Neil Baker include:

The Weyland-Yutaniverse, Part I
The Weyland-Yutaniverse, Part II
Foreign Bodies
Mummy Issues
Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes
Monster Mayhem
It’s All Rather Hit-or-Mythos
You Can’t Handle the Tooth
Tubi Dive
What Possessed You?
Fan of the Cave Bear
There, Wolves
What a Croc
Prehistrionics
Jumping the Shark

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See all of Neil Baker’s Black Gate film reviews here. Neil spends his days watching dodgy movies, most of them terrible, in the hope that you might be inspired to watch them too. He is often asked why he doesn’t watch ‘proper’ films, and he honestly doesn’t have a good answer. He is an author, illustrator, teacher, and sculptor of turtle exhibits. (AprilMoonBooks.com).