The Alien movies have been linked to plenty of filmic properties over the years, from Halloween to The Thing to (literally) Predator, but maybe we’ve been missing their true cinematic companion all along. Arriving only two years before Ridley Scott’s canonized original (and with substantially more fanfare), Star Wars, perhaps more so than the oft-cited Jaws, was the blockbuster that truly changed movies forever, an intergalactic cocktail of Joseph Campbell, samurai flicks, and Flash Gordon that invited everyone under the widest umbrella ever assembled. Alien had a much more exclusive guest list, favoring horror and claustrophobia over adventure and uplift, but the trajectories of the two franchises have been twined ever since. Both scaled up in their second outings to the delight of critics and audiences alike, broadened their lores through appendages like serialized novels, comic books, and video games, and even saw their initial creators return to the scene years later with mixed results. They’ve also since been scooped up by Disney, and while hand-wringing over the mouse house’s track record of late has been a little overblown, there’s something distressing about this yin and yang of the outer space experience converging under the same roof. It wouldn’t matter if they’d managed to keep their wildly divergent ideologies separate; we wouldn’t be comparing the two if they had.

Taking place in between the events of Alien and Aliens, Romulus’ plot machinations begin in earnest at a dark and dreary mining colony named Jackson’s Star. Lorded over by the nefarious Weyland-Yutani Corporation, the rain-soaked outpost is home to innumerable beleaguered workers including Rain (Cailee Spaeny), a hopeful 20-something with dreams of escape and sunnier days ahead. When her work contract is callously extended, she teams up with her android/brother figure Andy (David Jonsson) and a rag tag group of peers on a covert mission of escape to an abandoned space station that floats enticingly above. If you’re stumped as to what might be waiting for them aboard this reportedly vacated ship, you’ve probably never seen one of these things before.

Nodding to Romulus’ inherent predictability shouldn’t be seen as a slight, as there are paying customers in the audience who deserve their pound of flesh. Having made his name on the 2014 remake of Evil Dead, director Fede Álvarez is no stranger to giving the people what they want, and when graded on a gorey, gooey curve, he largely comes up aces. Graciously returning to the practical sets and effects that have proved integral in this series’ staying power, the xenomorphs and face-huggers in Romulus are pleasantly nasty, possessing enough weight and slimy sheen to feel tactile. There’s enough joyful sadism in many of the on screen deaths to appease the carnage-crazed masses, especially when it comes to the extra terrestrials’ previously under-utilized acid blood, an ace in the hole of prior entries that finally gets its turn in the spotlight. Seven movies in (plus two Alien vs. Predator flicks), we’ve seen just about every form of maiming and dismembering under the sun, but a late-breaking set piece involving that deadly liquid spinning pirouettes in midair still stands as true innovation.

It also feels a bit too safe, like walking through a haunted house attraction where you know the performers aren’t legally allowed to touch you. Most of this problem derives from the kind of familiarity that builds up over the course of five decades, but there’s a cleanliness to the proceedings that prevents anything from feeling truly threatening. Clutter and melee have never looked quite so pristine, and for all the loving craft and expert staging involved, Romulus is more of an attraction than a movie, an invitation to revisit the site of your favorite horror franchise rather than a proper film in its own right. There’s even an extended cameo from a familiar face that’s either distractingly unnecessary or in outright bad taste depending on your vantage point. In any case, it’s hard to dread what’s at the end of that dark corridor when you know its shape so vividly.

Perhaps the greatest fount of newness comes in the form of the cast, both for their fresh faces and lowered median age. Their collective youth gives Romulus something to call its own, but the type of cannon fodder on display can only go so far when their actions and fates remain unchanged. Spaeny deserves credit for not even trying out the Sigourney Weaver impression she undoubtedly has in her back pocket, instead playing Rain as a  deer-in-headlights neophyte, the movie twisting itself into knots to prove her pluck and aplomb. Johnson doesn’t require as much convincing, afforded the flick’s juiciest part and absolutely smashing it. Any tension that exists within Romulus comes as a result of the script’s clever gamesmanship with its android’s questionable humanity and autonomy, and Jonnson’s ability to generate concern and belief, sometimes simultaneously. Just when you’ve fully bought into Andy’s inner turmoil (or haunting lack thereof), he utters a line that both breaks the spell and illuminates the flick’s faulty foundation with the brightest of lights.

Somehow there are still no truly bad Alien movies, and Romulus doesn’t break the streak. Each installment brings something new to the table, and while others have offered themes of spirituality, ecology, and the military industrial complex, this one’s preoccupation is nostalgia. From the reference-laden wardrobes to the analogue computer screens, the callback line readings and that damned cameo, Romulus exists as a celebration of what came before it, as well as a response to the earth-shattering success of The Force Awakens. 2015’s reintroduction to Star Wars was a back-to-basics remake of the original that did everything in its power to refrain from surprise, its tentativeness rewarded with heaping piles of cash. It should be no surprise that studio executives, especially after the ongoing culture war surrounding that movie’s sequels, would pivot to playing the hits with fetishistic precision. Blame it on Hollywood all you want; we used our wallets to tell tinseltown we’d like more of the same, only without any of that pesky creativity infringing on our cherished memories. They obliged.