Shaking off monsters

The queue outside Edinburgh's Cameo Cinema for EIFF's screening of Alien: Romulus Photo: Andrew Robertson

Alien: Romulus inside the Cameo Photo: Andrew Robertson

Opening the Midnight Madness strand at the 77th Edinburgh International Film Festival, Alien: Romulus was introduced by an ebullient Paul Ridd. The festival's director was clad in a tweed three-piece and a tartan tie, a cut from Scotland's cultural cloth. Asking the audience if we were "ready to watch a scary movie" he repeated himself and received a better response.

Thanking Disney for the opportunity to show the film, Ridd led the audience in Cameo theatre one in a rendition of Happy Birthday for Picturehouse supremo Clare Binns. It was a good spirited affair, and the thanks for the xenomorph cosplayer who had terrorised the queue by posing for selfies was echoed with applause.

In his welcoming video message, director Fede Alvarez thanked the film festival for making the film part of the strand and the audience for coming to the UK premiere. At what was described as an "ungodly hour" by Ridd the audience remained good-humoured.

If the event had sold out circumstances meant there were a fair few empty seats, though it'd be churlish to call it anything but nearly full. As it was I had leg room and seats to either side, but that might have been the benefit of the front row.

One of the stated goals of the festival this year is to widen audiences, and it might well be working. I hadn't expected laughter at the BBFC's new animated guide to ratings, but I've seen it an uncountable number of times this year so its novelty has faded.

I also hadn't quite expected applause at the end, but I did understand the couple who spent a good chunk of their walk to the street asking "but why though?". As I stayed to the end of the credits, as much in case there was a scene at the end (there isn't) as to count the special effects firms (dozens) I missed much of the other detail of chatter out the door. As a first film of this festival there was much to enjoy, and I'm hopeful it'll be built on.

Amy Liptrot, on whose memoir The Outrun is based Photo: Amber Wilkinson

Earlier in the evening, Ridd, along with The Outrun co-writer Amy Liptrott, on whose book the film is based, plus director Nora Fingscheidt and producers Sarah Brocklehurst and Dominic Norris did the rounds of some seven screens across Edinburgh to introduce the film. Away from the imagined monsters of Alien: Romulus, this emotional drama charts Liptrot's battles with the monster of alcohol addiction. On hand at some of the screenings was also the film's star Saorise Ronan.

Sarah Brocklehurst and Nora Fingscheidt Photo: Amber Wilkinson