If your employer requested you to sever a body in two for your job, you would probably decline. Yet for Steve Painter, the head of prosthetics and designer for *Alien: Earth*, dismembering fake bodies was merely a standard task.

In a Zoom interview with Mashable, Painter detailed the experience of ripping apart the corpse of Maginot engineer Shmuel (Michael Smiley). This cadaver makes a brief appearance in scenes featuring Prodigy soldiers and Lost Boy hybrids. At first, it remained intact on the ground. However, when *Alien: Earth* showrunner Noah Hawley asked for Shmuel to be dismembered and his parts scattered, Painter and his crew sprang into action.

“I simply tore his body in half,” Painter shared with Mashable. “Then we had mere minutes, literally minutes while they were preparing the cameras, to make his top half and bottom half look gruesome.”

(Thankfully, *Alien: Earth* always kept a bucket of artificial entrails on set.)

Shmuel’s severed body is visible for just a few seconds, yet the backstory underscores the show’s dedication to practical effects. While some of the show’s grisly features were last-minute requests from Hawley, much of *Alien: Earth*’s body horror was meticulously schemed. Painter highlighted three of the show’s bloodiest scenes, covering Xenomorph assaults to gaping chest wounds.

*Alien: Earth* creates impact with an early Xenomorph strike.

One of Painter’s preferred prosthetic scenes occurred in episode 2, when the Xenomorph attacks Prodigy soldier Bergerfeld (Dean Alexandrou). As one of the Xenomorph’s initial victims, Bergerfeld’s demise needed to convey significance. The Xenomorph grabs Bergerfeld by the face, tosses him around, and hurls him at Hermit (Alex Lawther). A blood-soaked Bergerfeld tumbles off Hermit, exposing his mangled face.

“That was quite an impressive effect to achieve on Dean,” Painter told Mashable. “We had some green areas on his face, and a prosthetic wrapping around where the Xeno had ripped his face apart. So his jaw is hanging off, his tongue is exposed, his upper teeth, things like that. We did that every day for around a week, and it was quite gratifying.”

Alexandrou shared a video of the prosthetic application process on Instagram, giving viewers a closer look at Bergerfeld’s devastated face.

*Alien: Earth* parallels John Hurt’s Chestburster sequence.

One of Painter’s most significant challenges occurred in episode 7, when Arthur Sylvia (David Rysdahl) meets his end by Chestburster. This scene echoes Kane’s (John Hurt) death in Ridley Scott’s original *Alien*. Painter, a fan of *Alien* since he was 13, repeatedly watched Hurt’s legendary scene for preparation, striving to get *Alien: Earth*’s version right. The show applies the same methods as the original film, using advanced materials like silicone.

However, there are distinctions between Kane’s and Arthur’s deaths. Painter aimed to broaden the scene, illustrating how the Chestburster’s emergence would affect Arthur’s entire physique. This led to the visual of Arthur’s twitching legs.

Arthur’s death setting also sets it apart. He is on a sunlit beach, unlike the Nostromo dining area. “From a technical perspective, that kept me awake some nights,” Painter admitted.

Malachite’s demise in *Alien: Earth* is a fantasy for *Alien* enthusiasts.

While Xenomorphs cause many gruesome scenes, the four new alien species introduced in the series also feature remarkable moments, particularly the blood ticks. When Maginot engineering apprentice Malachite (Jamie Bisping) consumes tick tadpoles in episode 5, they attach to his insides. Medical officer Rahim (Amir Boutros) opens his chest, exposing his innards and the ticks.

Painter and his crew constructed a complete replica of Bisping’s body with the open chest and silicone components. Building the body was just the beginning, as Painter also had to create motion within it.

“We developed a small pod that fits inside that body. It’s fairly intricate, but it could pump using bellows and syringes and similar devices,” Painter clarified. “So it was a fully functioning, practical body that was placed on the table.”

For a scene of Malachite shaking as the blood ticks release toxic gas, Painter and his team designed a prosthetic for Bisping’s chest. Nonetheless, in the final edit, “90 percent of it is our body that they’re working on.”

The Malachite episode was a realization of Painter’s dreams, and he expressed gratitude to Hawley for penning it.

“I approached Noah and said, ‘Look, I appreciate you for writing this material, because it aligns perfectly with my interests,'” Painter recalled.