It may seem odd to care New Zealand First and its Leader to one of the iconic sci-fi horror series of our times, Aliens, but there are times when it does seem appropriate.

You see every time you think Peters is dead and beyond resurrection up he pops again ready to create havoc and mayhem on the political landscape.

He's like an Alien Queen, albeit the acid he sprays is with his tongue, not his blood - he just never stays dead.

In the 90s he survived, and thrived, his departure from the National Party - an affair drenched in rancour and ill-will, some of which echoes to this day in National Party circles. Despite a hammering from the electorate, and some of his own MPs, he escaped the turmoil of the Bolger Government to fight another day. In the 2000s there were funding scandals, the Owen Glenn affair, a privileges inquiry, and a long running and bitter battle with the Press Gallery, and then the wipe out at the 2008 election after then Opposition leader John Key ruled New Zealand First out

Then it was thought, with his party decimated in the polls and slung out of Parliament, a political stake had been driven through his heart. Peters, the pundits thought, would crumble into dust and his party be no more than an interesting side note in the country's political history books.

But no, like Jason, like Mike Myers and Freddy Krueger, Winston Peters rose again at the 2011 election and then, like an alien embryo bursting from a chest cavity, he neatly eviscerated the National Party in the 2015 Northland by-election.

A year from now and another election will be beckoning. Already the questions are being asked. Will Peters be a kingmaker and if he is, how will he wield that power? There's no easy way to answer that as the man himself delights in giving no easy answers. Winston Peters loves leading reporters on a merry and tangled chase for clarity every time the issue comes up. Such decisions, he thunders, are for the voters to decide and any attempt to figure out where he might stand results in answers as clear as a foggy Waikato morning.

However there are a couple of things that can be said of Winston Peters; he never forgets a slight, he rarely forgives an enemy.

I'm reminded of the closing scene in Aliens when the audience believes the horror is over and the victory is won. Then the Alien Queen emerges from the shadows and tears the android Bishop clean in half.

Well, in the scene I'm thinking of; it's after the 2017 election and National thinks it’s found the numbers to govern. John Key is the android Bishop and Winston Peters is the Alien Queen.

Felix Marwick is Newstalk ZB's Chief Political Reporter