Xeno: scifi film trailer [video]
If you’ve ever sat through E.T. and thought, “Lovely, but what if the adorable alien had more teeth and an unsettling tendency to lurk in the shadows?” then Xeno is the cinematic fever dream you’ve been waiting for.
The newly released trailer for Xeno teases a science fiction adventure that seems determined to fuse Spielbergian wonder with just enough cosmic dread to make you consider switching off your porch light forever. Directed, written, produced, and—just for good measure—edited by Matthew Loren Oates, the film positions itself as a love letter to classic alien-encounter stories, but with the uneasy undercurrent that maybe this time the extraterrestrial isn’t here to phone home so much as rummage through your innards.
Front and centre is Lulu Wilson as Renee, a teenage girl living somewhere in the vast and suspiciously isolated deserts of New Mexico (where else?). When an alien craft crash-lands near her home, she does what all plucky cinematic teenagers do: ignores common sense, wanders into the wreckage, and decides to adopt the creature she finds lurking inside.
From the glimpses in the trailer, this is no wide-eyed cuddly gremlin. The Jim Henson Company—yes, the same wizards responsible for the Muppets—have lent their creature-crafting talents to an alien design that looks part sympathetic, part absolutely capable of liquefying your insides if startled. Which is frankly the sweet spot for any self-respecting sci-fi beastie.
Alongside Wilson, the film stars Omari Hardwick as Jonathan Keyes, a character who in the trailer appears to oscillate between military-grade seriousness and parental concern; Wrenn Schmidt and Trae Romano also feature, presumably to provide a chorus of exasperated adults failing to keep the teenagers from making life-threatening decisions. Paul Schneider rounds out the cast as Chase, a figure who, judging by his ominous stares, will either help our heroine or attempt to dissect her new friend in a subterranean lab.
The trailer itself is a tight little rollercoaster of wistful bonding montages—think hand-outstretched moments set against a swelling orchestral score—and ominous glimpses of local law enforcement converging with far too many automatic weapons. There’s a shot of the alien silhouetted by headlights, a suspiciously sticky cave, and just enough flashes of creature mayhem to make you wonder if this first contact will end in hugs or incineration.
Ryan Taubert’s score promises to tug at your heartstrings even as the creature tugs at something less metaphorical, and Kevin Hart’s involvement as a producer adds another fascinating wrinkle to the project—after all, you wouldn’t immediately associate the man behind Jumanji with existential alien terror. But then, stranger collaborations have yielded excellent results.
Here at SFcrowsnest magazine, we have a soft spot for any film that tries to split the difference between cuddly and horrifying. If Xeno can keep its tone balanced—without tipping too far into unintentional comedy or relentless gloom—it could be one of the year’s most interesting genre surprises.
Mark your calendars for 19th September 2025, when Xeno lands in cinemas across the US and Canada to teach us all an important lesson: never feed mysterious extraterrestrials after midnight. Or, failing that, at least keep the cat indoors.
