WĒTĀ Workshop’s Joe Dunckley and Vaughan Flanagan spill the secrets on Alien: Earth’s Xenomorph, Facehugger, and Orchid, plus many more gory goodies.

Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees, and Michael Myers always come up when conversations are had about the best and most iconic horror killers, but Alien’s Xenomorph is a killing machine that has every right to be in the same conversation as these slasher icons. The Xenomorph has even made its way into Mortal Kombat, where it’s held its own with Outworld’s most vicious characters. The Xenomorph and his accompanying franchise are in a bit of a renaissance right now between Alien: Romulus, its upcoming sequel, and FX’s Alien: Earth, which just finished its first season. Alien: Earth has been an original take that’s rejuvenated the franchise in rewarding ways, but it’s also led to a bevy of new creatures in the Xenomorph evolutionary chart. 

WĒTĀ Workshop is a prolific special effects company that’s perhaps best known for their Peter Jackson collaborations, including The Lord of the Rings, along with Mad Max: Fury Road, Dune, and James Cameron’s Avatar films. Their work on Alien: Earth has truly been a revelation. It’s done these cinematic monsters justice, while also plausibly building upon this scary, sterile world. WĒTĀ understands that the audience needs to truly fear the Xenomorph and Facehugger, which is certainly accomplished with what they’re up to in Alien: Earth.

WĒTĀ Workshop’s Joe Dunckley and Vaughan Flanagan break down their Alien: Earth creations, the Xenomorph’s evolution throughout the years, and replicating – and topping – the Facehugger’s trademark terror.

BLOODY DISGUSTING: The Alien franchise is so iconic and has left an imprint on people in many different ways, whether it’s the films, comics, video games, and more. What was your existing relationship with the series before getting involved with Alien: Earth?

JOE DUNCKLEY: I mean, for me, it began with my oldest sister somehow getting ahold of a videotape of Alien and somehow getting us to watch it without my parents knowing. And then being scarred by that experience. It was just like an incredibly horrific, but wonderfully told, story. Then by the time Aliens came out, I was just so excited to see it. And a totally different paced film that still caught the essence of the creature from the first one, but in a totally different way. It’s more of an action movie than a psychological sci-fi thriller. For me, that was the basis of my fandom.

VAUGHAN FLANAGAN: I probably was also traumatized by an older sibling showing me an Alien film. But I think the first one I actually saw was Aliens. And [James] Cameron’s film just has that militaristic flavor to it. It’s way more action-packed. So I think I grew up thinking, “Yeah, this is the definitive Alien film.” As I’ve grown older and seen all the others, I’ve grown a greater appreciation for that first Ridley Scott film. I think it just has a pacing to it. It’s operating on the cerebral level that is really satisfying. 

A Xenomorph in the jungle in Alien: Earth.

BD: The Xenomorph has a rich history across the Alien franchise that’s evolved over time. Was it a challenge to fit your design into the mix and what’s been established, but also putting your own stamp on this creature in the process?

VF: Absolutely. It was one of those things that we were really, really fortunate to be able to do–to be able to take a look at that Xenomorph design. It also made us very nervous because it’s just one of those designs that everybody knows. It’s just so iconic. We really didn’t want to mess with it too much, but Noah [Hawley] had a particular vision that he wanted to bring into the Xenomorph. It’s a very terrestrial-based show and so the design references things like beetles, insects, and other crustaceans. Those are all kind of expressed in the details of the design. 

For Noah, it was really important to preserve that silhouette. It was a very challenging design brief. We went through quite a few phases of just pure concept art, developing it in 3D, and then we moved into a physical sculpt. Decisions were made throughout that whole process, so Noah was driving it to new places throughout that whole process.

BD: It looks like there’s a bit of a camouflage aspect to these Xenomorphs and that they feature more yellows and greens in their design’s coloration to match their surrounding nature. Is that the case?

VF: Yeah, I mean, it’s not necessarily meant as camouflage, but it’s more kind of a reference to things like cockroaches and beetles. Some of the early designs that we did were very insectile and very elongated. It was only really when we knew that we were going to be building a suit, and it had to do a certain level of performance, that we built a performance suit that could achieve what the script said. 

BD: I also love the idea of bringing more alien flora into the mix, in addition to insects and animals. Has it been fun to explore that side of nature, too?

VF: That stuff was really fun, especially because we just didn’t have this sort of sense of H.R. Giger’s ghost over our shoulder. We were able to explore those freely and really be driven by a lot of the ideas that Noah had for those creatures. He had a sort of principle for us, which was to sort of explore things that weren’t necessarily just outright scary, but had interesting life cycles and that sense of surprise that we first got when we encountered the Xenomorph for the first time, you know? Who knew that when that thing jumped out of the egg and latched onto someone’s face that it was going to result in such a creature. That was something that Noah was really keen to recreate; that experience of surprise and that complex organism with all the new creatures. 

Arthur, with a Facehugger attached to him, in Alien: Earth.

BD: This is also one of the first times that you really get a good look at a Xenomorph in daylight. They’re normally kept in shadows and dark environments, so just the opportunity to really get a solid look at them in action is really cool. 

JD: And that’s something that’s sort of forced upon the production based on the fact that it’s Alien: Earth. This isn’t happening on a dark spaceship or on an alien moon. It’s happening on Earth and you’re going to see different conditions for Xenomorphs. There’s the potential to see a Xenomorph doing his thing in a hotel, taking out a party of aristocrats. Looking at past Xenomorphs, I think there was color in a lot of those that really didn’t read because of the lighting. It’s something different that’s driven by the storytelling. 

BD: The Facehugger is another beloved Alien touchstone that’s been endlessly homaged and something that is practically symbolic of the franchise. How did you go about replicating that horrifying magic of the original and then also pushing it further?

VF: Yeah, so the Facehugger is more or less the same as what we see in those first two films. However, there’s a subtle difference in the undercarriage, which you might not have seen. There are actually a few hairs on the side of the proboscis. Not trying to get too anatomical here, but there are a few details that are quite unique to this version. 

JD: Just the cherry on top, really, that’s just a little bit grosser. How can we make this worse? A couple of coarse hairs will probably do it. We were sort of perfectly positioned for the Facehuggers in that there’s a rich history. The artists that have worked on them before, Alec Gillis and the Legacy team, they’ve been very generous with what they’ve put out and shared on the internet. You’ve got the benefit of seeing all of that and how it’s been approached in other movies, behind the scenes, and then sitting where we are in terms of technological developments. 

We’re able to deploy 3D modeling. We’re printing the skeletal forms in nylon. We’re able to design animatronics in 3D and get all of that mechanical geometry and internal stuff built virtually before we’re committing to a physical space. So we can build from the inside out to what everybody expects to see, but we’re able to use new tricks to bring this thing to life.

BD: The Orchid is another really effective addition to the evolutionary line. Can you talk a little on its construction and figuring out the speed, fluidity, and force of its movements and consumption? Was that based off of anything?

VF: The Orchid was this interesting creature. We went through many different ideas before latching onto it, but prior to the design that we landed on, it was more airborne and sort of a bat-type creature. But Noah thought it’d be interesting to have this being that is somehow suspended between states of being. Like is it flora? Is it fauna? Maybe it’s both. It’s like a cross between a Venus flytrap and an umbrella. It’s a particularly vicious creature. 

JD: With how it moves, we did some tests and had a lot of fun with that. The Orchid essentially draws people in. 

VF: Yeah, it has the sort of lure that implies that it has intelligence. It’s sort of meant to kind of have a level of beauty to it as well. Until you get close enough.

JD: A lot of the movement was going to be very dynamic and likely VFX, but Noah wanted to ground it in something physical. So we did. We made a puppet. We made a set prop as well, which is in the containment unit in the lab. The puppet is essentially on a wire so it can drop down over its prey. The petals will open up and there’s a fleshy membrane that connects all of the petals. And on the internals of the petals is this fleshy surface with a bunch of hooks, which closes around its prey and draws them upwards. Then it essentially drinks its blood.

So we did a test with one of our crew – Luke Hawker – he’s a sculptor, but also a stuntman. So we put him on a harness, wrapped this thing around him, pulled him up and then – you know – dropped ten liters of blood on him. We had him pressing his face up against the membrane and you could see him smearing on the inside. The photos are great. 

BD: It’s amazing. You guys killed it. Figuratively and literally.

The entire first season of Alien: Earth is now available to stream on FX and Hulu.