The Scariest Creature in 'Alien: Earth' Isn't a Xenomorph Actorsvaultpro

For nearly 50 years, the Xenomorph has been one of the most iconic monsters in movie history. First introduced in 1979’s Alien, the creature felt like something truly otherworldly — a nearly unstoppable threat that lay waste to the entire crew of the Nostromo, except for Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver). Designed by artist H.R. Giger, its elongated head, metallic teeth, projectile tongue, and acid blood have been burned into the memory of every sci-fi fan for generations.

But even the scariest monsters lose some of their impact with time and exposure, and sadly, this fate has befallen the Xenomorph as well. Luckily, Alien: Earth has offered a host of new creature creations, and one of them is even more frightening than the Xenomorph at this stage. Known as “the Eye” (T. Ocellus / Species 64), the creature might be small, but it possesses some particularly disturbing skills which were put to memorable use in the series’ fifth episode, “In Space, No One…”.

What Makes the Eye So Scary?

FX Network / Hulu

Upon first glance, the Eye doesn’t look all that frightening. It’s quite small, with long tentacle-like legs and several irises and pupils that move around its body. Those who have a taste for the cuddly side of eldritch horrors might even find it cute in its own weird way. But the creature punches far above its weight in terms of its capabilities. Its main skill lies in its ability to attach itself to a host and take over their mind, essentially using them as a meat robot.

As if this weren’t scary enough, the way in which it does this makes it even more horrifying. Viewers first saw the Eye’s effect on a cat, but in Episode 4, “Observation,” they got a front-row seat for the entire process. Under the watchful eye of Kirsh (Timothy Olyphant) and his boss Boy Kavalier (Samuel Blenkin), the Eye climbs atop a sheep, pulls its eye out of its socket, and installs itself in its place, presumably connecting to the sheep’s brain stem. It’s a gruesome, deeply unsettling sequence, made more so by one unavoidable thought: if it could do that to a sheep, what could it do to a human?

Viewers didn’t have to wait long to find out. In Episode 5, a flashback revealing the fates of the crew of the ship Maginot, the Eye escapes from its enclosure and waits for the opportunity to strike. While we don’t get to see it attach itself to a human host, the aftereffects are disturbing enough on their own, as head engineer Shmuel (Michael Smiley) turns around to reveal the Eye peering out of his socket, its many irises fused into one gigantic one. The Eye uses Shmuel’s body to attack other crew members before eventually taking on the Xenomorph itself, though it’s unclear why.

The Eye’s mechanism for possessing a body is effectively gruesome, but there’s something deeply disturbing about the idea of bodies being controlled by an outside entity. It’s an unsettling reminder that our entire identities are contained in our biological material, that our thoughts and ideas are just electrical impulses in our brains that can be easily interrupted. The loss of self is always a frightening concept, one that has served as the backbone of possession horror movies and body-snatcher sci-fi stories alike, and Alien: Earth makes effective use of it.

The Eye’s Intriguing Intelligence in ‘Alien: Earth’

There’s been some debate online, particularly after the fifth episode, that the Eye might not be the creature of pure destruction that the Xenomorph is. For one thing, it taps on the glass of its enclosure, distracting Chibuzo (Karen Aldridge) just as a different creature climbs out of its own enclosure and spews its larvae into her water bottle. Some viewers felt that the Eye was trying to warn her, while others believed it was providing its fellow alien with a diversion; however, this does point to the fact that its motivations aren’t entirely clear yet.

Obviously, the Eye is capable of inflicting its own kind of damage, but the fact that it went toe-to-toe (or toe-to-claw) with a Xenomorph is very intriguing. Could these two unlikely foes have some kind of interspecies rivalry? They both possess a high level of intelligence and the ability to stalk their prey, so they might be considered apex predators, despite their size difference. It seems that the series is interested in exploring new depths of these creatures, introducing the ability to communicate through Wendy (Sydney Chandler), so it’s likely there’s more to this than just pure survival instinct.

It might have been unthinkable at the start, but Alien: Earth has managed to introduce a new extraterrestrial monster to rival the Xenomorph, at least after so many films. Would the Eye have been as scary as its much larger fellow species if introduced way back in the first film? Probably not. But with the Xenomorph well-established in the cultural imagination, its capabilities widely demonstrated, it’s high time for a new alien threat to rise to its level. Who could have imagined it would look like this? Alien: Earth is streaming now on Hulu.