Xtro

Image Entertainment

R1 DVD

Director: Harry Bromley Davenport

Originally released in 1983, the British-made Sci Fi horror Xtro was clearly inspired by Ridley Scott's groundbreaking classic Alien. Instead of taking place in space, the action in Xtro is centred on Suburban London and a country estate. The film opens with a typical house in the country and a playful family afternoon, this is rather abruptly and rudely interrupted by a violent extra terrestrial encounter where husband Sam Phillips is abducted by a UFO and his young son Tony barely escapes.

No one takes Tony’s tale of abduction seriously and believe Sam has abandoned his family, perhaps running off with another woman. Here we get all the related family melodrama of the love, divorce and breakup emotional subplot which plays out throughout the film.

Three years later, a blinding light illumines the night sky, explosions take place, a forest is decimated and a strange repugnant creature begins to take form in the earth. This is the beginning of the Extro gore experience. A car hits what the driver thinks is an animal and stops to investigate. He is slain by a four-legged creature who takes his clothes and then visits a local home where he attaches a suction cup-like phallus to his victims mouth and impregnates her. She then starts to give birth in the most over the top fashion since the baby is a full size man and yes, you guessed it, Sam is reborn.

Sam shows up as though nothing has happened but much has changed and once again the family melodrama seems intent to interfacing with the Sci Fi gore. His wife, Rachel has taken up with a younger photographer, Joe and a gorgeous French maid Analyse has been hired to help look after the troubled Tony. Sam claims to have suffered amnesia, and can't remember anything since the disappearance. While Joe scoffs at the story Rachel seems to still love him and allows him to stay, but we know that Sam is a brutal alien not the lovely Husband she believes him to be.

Xtro is a strange experience as it mixes science fiction, gore and grotesque special effects, horror and a family melodrama sub plot. At times you wonder how many films it is trying to be. At the same time it pushes a lot of buttons, it has wild alien impregnation scenes, grotesque special effects which still have the ability to shock over 20 years later and some truly surreal plot twists and turns.

There is violence, family melodramas, oral sex, impregnations, explosive births, psychic powers, a disemboweling and a rather weird Eighties soundtrack. This is cult film at its vicious and nasty best!

The Image Entertainment DVD has a remarkably clear picture, good sound and quite a few extras including two alternative endings, a lost scene, gallery and a trailer.