The new Alien: Romulus trailer channels classic sci-fi horror

It sure looks like the Alien franchise is making a return to its horror roots. After a brief teaser earlier in the year and some creepy behind-the-scenes footage, 20th Century Studios has released the first full trailer for Alien: Romulus, a standalone film from director Fede Álvarez. In short: it looks scary as hell. It also appears to really stick to the core tenets of the original film, with a small cast; dark, isolated setting; and only hints of the deadly alien itself.

The story involves a group of scavengers scrounging around on an abandoned space station, before becoming the unfortunate prey of a xenomorph. It stars Cailee Spaeny, David Jonsson, and Archie Renaux. The film also has a very good new poster that hints at the importance of the classic space huggers:

Romulus will be the first new entry in the franchise since the prequel films, Prometheus and Alien: Covenant, which took a detour to explain where the xenomorphs came from. Romulus, on the other hand, looks analogous to Prey, a standalone story in the Predator universe that wasn’t saddled by the canon of its predecessors — and absolutely ruled because of it.

Alien: Romulus hits theaters on August 16th.