Alien: Covenant TV spots offers up first look at brand new type of creature

Get our free weekly email for all the latest cinematic news from our film critic Clarisse Loughrey

Get our The Life Cinematic email for free

Please enter a valid email address

Please enter a valid email address

SIGN UP

I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice

Alien: Covenant is selling itself hard on the combination of doom and terror, so its new TV spots are staying pointedly on theme.

Elaborating on the film's tagline - 'Run. Pray. Hide.' - the three spots revealed just a little more footage from the upcoming sequel/prequel, including our first official look at the film's so-called Neomorph.

While we've already glimpsed the return of several of the classic stages of the Xenomorph life cycle, from egg to facehugger to chestbuster and so on, the Neomorph seems to be something of a different beast.

It, conversely, appears to begin life by bursting out of a victim's back after they come into contact with the mysterious spores which litter the undiscovered planet the Covenant crew stumble across.

The 'Hide' TV spot reveals what could be a more developed version of the Neomorph, its slightly translucent, pale appearance marked by a pointed head and fang-like teeth, though without possession of a second mouth.

Even star Michael Fassbender has promised the film will be "super scary"; here returning alongside Prometheus cast members Noomi Rapace and Guy Pearce, plus some new faces: Fantastic Beasts' Katherine Waterston, Demian Bichir, Billy Crudup, and Danny McBride.

The film sees the crew of the colony ship Covenant discover what they believe to be an uncharted paradise while journeying to a remote planet on the far side of the galaxy; but they soon come to understand this new world is actually a dark, threatening place, inhabited only by the 'synthetic' David (Fassbender), a survivor of the doomed Prometheus expedition.

Alien: Covenant will be released in the UK on 12 May.