The nature of motherhood presents fertile ground of fears for horror to explore. There are countless genre movies that explore the horrors of giving birth, of child-rearing, of maternal sacrifice, and simply how being a mother can affect one’s sanity. Which means that when it comes to celebrating Mother’s Day, there’s no shortage of horror movies to honor the blood, sweat, and tears it takes to be a mom. The most obvious selections focus on evil mothers, protective mothers, or benign moms struggling with their evil kid. But no franchise has managed to explore every corner of motherhood quite like the Alien franchise. From the philosophical to the traditional, from conception to the stresses of raising a child (or monster), to the very definition of what motherhood is, the entire catalog of Alien films has captured the complexities of motherhood in way that’s wholly unique. For this Mother’s Day, we’re paying respects to Ellen Ripley, the Queen Mother, and mothers everywhere by looking back at the maternal core of this series.
Forty years ago, Alien shook audiences with the iconic scene that saw the blue-collar crew of the Nostromo settled in for a comfortable meal together after one of their own recovered from a daunting brush with a facehugging alien lifeform, only to have their lives irrevocably changed by the arrival of a newborn. The act of childbirth is a messy, excruciating process, and Alien took it to a whole new harrowing level by gender-swapping the birth and having the alien baby enter the world by bursting forth from its host’s chest cavity. That the host, Kane (John Hurt), had this twisted pregnancy forced upon him when he got a little too curious about a strange egg while exploring a derelict space ship on moon LV-426, adds even more layers of fear regarding childbirth.
Then there’s the Nostromo’s mainframe, MU-TH-UR 6000, known simply as “Mother.” It’s a fitting name as the computer operated many of the ship’s background systems, autopiloted the ship while the crew was in hypersleep, and woke the crew from hypersleep. “Mother” behaved like a mother, in a certain sense. From a literary standpoint, “Mother” provided the film’s protagonist with necessary information that nudged them forward in their journey to becoming a hero – Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) learned of the company’s true motives through “Mother.”
Whereas Alien presented a metaphorical approach to the horrors of childbirth, Aliens took on motherhood in a much more traditional way. Ripley and Jonesy the cat were the only survivors of the ill-fated Nostromo, and they were eventually rescued by her employer, Weyland-Yutani Corporation. Unfortunately, she’d been in stasis for 57 years prior to rescue. It’s in her debriefing, in a deleted scene, that we learn Ripley had a daughter that grew to old age and died in the 57 years she’d been asleep. It wasn’t enough to lose her crew, her job, and nearly her life- all in a traumatic event that left her with PTSD. She lost her role as a mother, as well. That emotional loss makes it easier to understand the maternal instincts that take over the moment she sees Newt, the sole survivor of Hadley’s Hope – a colony of terraformers on LV-426.
Like Ripley, Newt lost everything she knew. Her parents, her brother, and the life she once had. Something that Ripley relates to well and drives her to fight even harder to protect the girl. It’s forming a new family from two broken ones, culminating in that final emotional moment after Ripley saves Newt from one monstrous foe, and Newt calls her “Mommy” while clinging tight. More than acceptance, it’s a heartfelt example that mothers are more than just blood relations.
While Ripley’s entire arc in Aliens is defined by her relationship with a surrogate daughter, it’s matched by the epic reveal of the Queen alien. Aliens gives a face to the creature responsible for all of those eggs, and it’s far worse than any of the Xenomorphs encountered before. And the Queen Mother matches every bit of Ripley’s ferocious protectiveness of her children, building up to one satisfying final act as she seeks personal revenge against Ripley for destroying her eggs and the ovipositor in which she uses to lay them. Aliens pits mother against mother, and depending on your perspective, neither are wrong as they’re both driven by maternal instinct and preservation.
Alien 3 drew ire straightaway by immediately killing off Newt and Corporal Dwayne Hicks (Michael Biehn) when a fire breaks out in the Sulaco, and the escape pod crash lands on a remote prison planet inhabited only by men. The sole survivor, Ripley, once again faces the loss of a child. Her intrinsic journey in this film is one based in a crisis of faith. She’s failed at motherhood twice and finds herself essentially pregnant again – this time with a Xenomorph embryo. A Queen. She’s poised to become the mother of the mother of the apocalypse. Ripley’s journey ends with her throwing herself into a burning furnace as the newborn Queen bursts forth from her chest. Ripley clutches the infant close as they both perish; she’s found a peace in knowing her fight against the Xenomorphs ends here.
“My mommy always told me there were no monsters. No real ones. But there are.”
Ripley’s voiceover narration begins Alien: Resurrection, as the camera pans over her naked body in a giant tube in a lab, surrounding by scientists. 200 years after the events of Alien 3, they’ve finally found a way to get the Xenomorph specimen by cloning Ripley from blood samples prior to her death while she was still impregnated with the Queen embryo. Ripley, as we knew her for the past three films, is long gone, instead, this new version, Clone 8, is an alien hybrid. A hybrid that feels much more maternal for the Xenomorphs on board.
When Call (Winona Ryder) first meets Ripley, wanting to kill her and prevent the Queen from being born, she realizes in horror that the scientists already removed it. “You mean my baby?” Ripley corrects Call, when she refers to the newborn as an “it” with revulsion. Ripley isn’t human anymore, and thus feels kinship with her offspring. It’s not just Ripley’s DNA that was altered, but the Queen alien as well. Ripley gifted her monstrous new daughter with a human reproductive system, which means the painless laying of eggs has been replaced by the agonizing pain of live birth.
Once the Queen gives birth, the Queen shows clear affection for her newborn- an atrocious hybrid of Ripley and Xenomorph. But the baby rejects its mother, and chooses Ripley instead- committing matricide as it looks to Ripley for comfort. When the baby threatens the safety of both the remaining survivors and Earth, Ripley tearfully mourns as she ends its life in brutal fashion. Whether you love or hate Alien: Resurrection, its entirety is focused on the evolution and emotional pull of motherhood.
For a series so intertwined with maternity, it makes sense that the next chapter turns its broader focus to the creation of life. The central theme in Prometheus may have drawn from the Greek myth in which it shares its name, and humanity’s relationship with their creators, but it made some interesting observations about birth in the process. Namely in character Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace), an archaeologist with a strong faith. Early on, it’s made clear that Shaw is unable to bear children. Considering the themes of creation, Shaw asks another character, “I can’t create life, what does that say about me?” It’s a question that highlights female insecurities about fertility, and perceived self-worth in reflection of that. It’s a heady question in a heady film about faith and creation, and once again tests the boundaries of what motherhood can be.
More obviously, the question sets up the memorable scene in which Shaw gives herself a C-Section to remove the alien fetus rapidly growing in her womb. I say C-section because the surgical removal of the fetus mirrors a cesarean section, and the tentacled creature that is removed from her womb isn’t terminated. The creature is left behind to continue growing, and winds up inadvertently saving Shaw from the Engineer trying to kill her in the final act of the film.
Alien: Covenant continues the themes of creation employed in Prometheus, and ties back into the original film in a more familiar way. The eggs, the bursting birth sequences, and the maternal way in which android David (Michael Fassbender) looks after his creations brings the entire series full circle. Just like the circle of life.
Mothers are the creators of life. That’s something this series explores in every possible way; from the unseen archaic mother that laid the eggs prior to the Nostromo’s arrival to the philosophical musings of David as he tampered with alien material to create new life in Prometheus and Alien: Covenant. Birth is synonymous with body horror here, as these newborns rip their way out of their mothers. It’s pure carnage. But the series also demonstrates that motherhood is more than simply giving birth; even adoptive (and infertile) mothers are worthy. It’s a mother that delivered one of horror’s most iconic movie monsters, and it’s a mother that’s the fiercest final girl of all time. All mothers are queens. When it comes to showing every aspect of what motherhood means, the Alien series captures it the best.
