I wanted to take a moment to talk about the score for Alien: Romulus because, even some time after the film’s release, it remains one of my favorite film scores in recent years. Benjamin Wallfisch has been one of my favorite composers for a long time, particularly since his work on the IT films, and Romulus feels like a continuation of everything I admire about his approach. His ability to seamlessly blend orchestral writing with electronic elements is exceptional, and the way those elements are mixed—clear, powerful, and never overbearing—feels intentional in every moment. This score didn’t just stand out to me; it stayed with me.
There’s a moment in the score where the orchestra no longer feels whole. Rather than functioning in a traditional sense, it sounds as though it’s being pulled apart—stretched, corrupted, and fused with something synthetic and hostile. Complex, rhythmic synth elements take control, while the recorded orchestra is fragmented and woven throughout, reinforcing the sense that the music itself is under threat.
Part of why Wallfisch’s scores — including Alien: Romulus — sound so meticulous in their mix and sonic detail is that he works in a Dolby Atmos-certified environment of his own design. At his Santa Monica facility, The Scoring Lab, he has a fully certified Atmos mix stage built in collaboration with Dolby Laboratories, equipped for immersive as well as traditional surround mixing. This setup lets him think spatially about how music interacts with the sound world of a film, blurring orchestral, electronic, and atmospheric elements across a three-dimensional soundscape rather than confining them to a flat stereo image. The result is a mix that feels cohesive, intentional, and cinematic — a sonic environment where every layer has its place and contributes to the score’s emotional impact.
As a composer who spends a lot of time working in horror, psychological thrillers, and true crime, this score immediately stood out to me. Not because it was loud or aggressive, but because of how uncomfortable it made the music feel. It’s a reminder that fear in film scoring often comes not from what is added, but from what is destabilized.
Respecting the DNA of Alien Without Repeating It
What Benjamin Wallfisch does so well in Romulus is avoid imitation while still respecting that DNA. The score never feels nostalgic, yet it feels undeniably Alien. Rather than quoting themes or mimicking orchestration, it embraces the underlying philosophy of the original: restraint, unease, and the unknown.
For composers, this is an important lesson. Honoring a legacy isn’t about copying the surface elements—it’s about understanding why they worked in the first place.
A clear example of this can be found in cues like “XX121.” At approximately 0:24, the main theme from Jerry Goldsmith’s original Alien score surfaces momentarily before being reshaped and absorbed back into Wallfisch’s modern sound world, transforming something familiar into something entirely new.
The Orchestra as a Fragile Thing
One of the most striking aspects of this score is how fragile the orchestra feels. Strings rarely sound warm or heroic. Instead, they feel brittle, unstable, and constantly under threat.
Synths and sound design don’t sit on top of the orchestra—they bleed into it. Bowed textures dissolve into noise. Harmonic motion feels interrupted or eroded. At times, it’s hard to tell where the orchestra ends and the sound design begins, and that ambiguity is exactly the point.
THERES SOMETHING IN THE WATER -
This “ripping apart” sensation mirrors the world of Alien itself: technology and humanity colliding, order breaking down, safety disappearing. The music isn’t just supporting the story—it’s embodying it. For the first part of the film the score is primarily all orchestra. When the track “There’s Something in the Water” arrives, Wallfisch begins integrating distorted synths and aggressive sound design into the orchestral fabric, blending the two into something striking and unsettling.
RUN -
In cues like “Run!” the score shifts into full-on propulsion: rhythmic drive, jagged electronic pulses, and aggressive orchestral writing combine to push the music into a state that feels urgent and dangerously kinetic. This isn’t the lush, spacious horror texture of some of the quieter cues — it’s music designed to accompany flight, panic, and the visceral need to survive. Here, Wallfisch’s hybrid language comes into sharp focus, with percussion-like synths and distorted textures woven into the orchestra so tightly that it’s often hard to say where acoustic ends and electronic begins. It’s a tense musical landscape that mirrors the characters’ desperation and reinforces the Alien franchise’s signature dread in a fresh, modern idiom.
What’s easy to overlook in discussions of Alien: Romulus is just how strong the purely orchestral writing is throughout the score. Beneath the tension, distortion, and hybrid textures lies a foundation of thoughtful, expressive orchestration. Wallfisch’s writing for strings in particular is nuanced and emotionally precise, capable of shifting from fragile intimacy to expansive weight without ever feeling overstated. These moments remind the listener that this score isn’t driven by sound design alone — it’s anchored by real compositional depth and a deep understanding of how orchestral color can shape emotion.
THATS OUR SUN -
That craftsmanship is especially evident in cues like “That’s Our Sun,” where the score briefly steps away from dread and allows space for something genuinely beautiful to emerge. Here, the orchestra feels open, warm, and almost vulnerable — a striking contrast to the hostility that dominates much of the film’s sound world. The harmony breathes, the orchestration feels deliberate and patient, and the music offers a rare sense of awe and humanity. Moments like this give the darker material greater impact, reminding us what’s at stake and reinforcing the emotional core beneath the horror. It’s a testament to Wallfisch’s range as a composer that the same score can feel both oppressive and profoundly moving without ever breaking its identity.
What resonates most with me as a composer is how intentional and controlled the entire score feels. The orchestra is rarely allowed to feel stable or safe, often dissolving into electronic textures or being reshaped by sound design, reinforcing the psychological tension at the heart of the film. Silence, restraint, and texture are used as primary storytelling tools rather than afterthoughts. Alien: Romulus is a reminder that effective genre scoring isn’t about scale or excess, but about trust—trust in the audience, trust in atmosphere, and trust in the power of subtle, unsettling musical choices.
The most unsettling thing about this score isn’t its volume or density. It’s the feeling that the orchestra itself is no longer safe. That the familiar language of music is being dismantled in real time.
And in a world like Alien, that might be the most honest musical choice of all.
