Starring Sara Secora and Phillip Sacramento

Animated by Paul Johnson

Directed by Paul Johnson and Claudia Montealegre

In space, no one can hear you say ‘Are we sure this is just a routine mining job?’

Animated, solo, across six years by Paul Johnson, Alien: Monday is stunning. Not just in terms of the sheer talent and persistence needed to finish it but in its understanding of the franchise. This isn’t just an Alien story, it’s a good Alien story and those haven’t always been in ready supply.

Sara Secora is great as Ashlin, a cheerily crumpled crewmember aboard the Thanatos, a mining hauler en route to an off-grid mineral field. Ashlin’s a burly presence, a chirpy meathead happy with her job, her lot and the fact she works in space. That amiability is a very different foundation than Ripley’s exhausted, deeply pissed off competence and it gives the story a very different feel. Ashlin’s a technician, a hands-on engineer comfortable in her authority and her physical presence. In Alien the threat was capitalism, as the Nostromo crew were sacrificed for profits. Here, the threat is more personal. The Thanatos is Ashlin’s home and there’s a monster on the doorstep. It’s an elemental story but not elementary, the threat more personal because of Ashlin’s good nature.

Philip Sacramento as Conrad, the onboard AI, is a great foil for Secora’s Ashlin. Conrad is polite, courteous, omnipresent and has the benefit of digital calm. He’s also, again, on side, and that helps raise the tension even further. Ashlin’s terror, when confronted with the Alien, is absolute but it’s also cut with the relentless competence of a blue collar astronaut. She’s always terrified, but she’s never powerless. Ellen Ripley would approve. And commiserate.

The direction and animation are the other stars here. Claudia Montealegre and Johnson use fluid, sweeping camera movements to keep Ashlin in shot and her emotions front and centre. Her initial panicked run from the Alien is a fantastic piece of acting, so much so you forget she’s animated as she scrabbles, falls and sprints away.  Everything here works in service to the story, and everything locks in Ashlin as a deeply competent, brave young woman having just the worst Monday.

The fact this has been animated by one person is astonishing. Johnson, best known for his TIE Fighter short years ago, plays with the toys of this universe but gives them all a unique spin. The Alien moves silently and with inhuman grace, repulsively over-sized and frequently RIGHT THERE. The Thanatos is a dingy little space truck, as it should be, but one that feels like a home. Everything feels considered, and consequential. Everything matters and nothing is for free. The ending especially, which wittily echoes the ending of another classic ’80s monster movie, is tremendous as is a silent, graceful, clumsy zero-g fistfight which sees the Alien rendered absurd but somehow even more dangerous.

Verdict: Alien: Monday is a staggering achievement. It’s inventive, graceful, unforgiving and a worthy addition to the Alien universe, just in time for Romulus. 10/10

Alasdair Stuart