SHOCKTOBER SPECIAL: Xtro - Lisa's Review

NOTE: In honour of Halloween, We're taking a break from the DPP list.

This weeks movie was selected because (although it never made the list) it was often seized by the police during DPP raids, and is often mistakenly listed as a "Video Nasty".

***SPOILERS***

Another non 'nasty' video this week with alien type movie 'Xtro'. I have to admit to hating most science fiction movies or anything involving aliens... not all, but most.

I think I've dissected the storylines too much in previous reviews, so I'm going to make a conscious effort not to do that this time, but instead just give a basic overview of the bare bones of the story.

So, we start this movie with what we imagine to be the abduction of a father (Sam)from his front garden in front of his young son Tony. I think they could have been a bit more imaginative with the abduction than a stick thrown in the air for their pet dog, a flash of light and POOF! he's gone!

The mother of course moves on and moves a new boyfriend in, thinking her husband has walked out on her, no-one of course believes Tony about the whereabouts of his dad. We also have a rather alluring attractive french babysitter who serves no purpose but to looks nice and get her bits out.

We get a good view of the monster/alien early on in the movie and boy is he crap, but most amusing. If you're a fan of the Poltergiest movies (I am) and remember Kane the preacher (awesome character!) from Poltergiest 2....... the bit where 'dad' from the movie has some tequilla and swallows Kane who has possessed a tequilla worm (seriously!).... well the almost evolved Kane who half crawls/half slithers under the bed?... that's the bad guy from this movie!!!

Anways, we move on 3 years...Sam is back. I'm not going to go into the whole reasoning as to exactly how he comes back and the story behind it, but it one of the most repulsive ideas I have ever seen and had me cringing throughout. Don't get me wrong, its not hard to watch, but if you're a woman and can watch this without crossing your legs... well done!!! It's most unpleasant but a clever idea, well done. Something to get to the female viewers of the movie.

So oddly enough, he is allowed to stay with his estranged wife and her new fiance and weird shit starts happening. Tony catching him eating his pet snakes eggs, forcing him into telling him that the aliens have made changes to him which have given him powers. He passes these onto Tony by way of a gross lovebite type thingy which was a bit yick. Tony now finds he can do things he couldn't before.

This is where I thought it started getting more than a bit weird. One of his toy clowns turns into a midget man and a toy solider turns into a real man with a plastic GI Joe mask. He does however have a trusty bayonet so can do some damage. Later we see his toy panther come to life and a toy tank shoot live rounds at the french babysitters boyfriend (Annalis).

The rest of the movie is somewhat surreal.

Tony does that wierd love bite sucking thing to Annalis who then starts developing a cocoon around her and starts spouting out eggs which the midget places in some goo in an upturned fridge.

Sam rekindles his romance with his wife when she takes him back to their old cottage to try to help him remember the missing pieces of his life ,only to fill her full of his alien nastiness.

The new boyfriend while trying to save her from Sam, is killed by way of a high pitched screeching which makes his ears bleed and then kills him.... odd she's not affected at all.

Sam takes his son Tony away in an alien spaceship thats just appeared and they've both turned into crap aliens.

The only person alive (the mum) goes back to the house with the eggs in the upturned fridge, picks one out and it explodes with a sucker attaching to her face and killing her.... the door closes and thats that....

So, what did I think? I'm not sure really. When I read this back, I think, what a load of toss, but to be honest, I quite enjoyed it. It was easy to watch, typical 80's sci-fi. The only thing that stood it apart was the rather gross scene I mentioned earlier.

I remember being a massive fan of 80's horror and movies which I thought were absolutely awesome (Firestarter, Christine, Maximum Overdrive to name a few), I've watched back now and am shocked to find how dated they are. With this in mind, I try not to let things like dated effects and cinematography have any sway in my opinions on movies, so all in all, it wasn't a bad movie. Its certainly not going to stand up there beside any of the Alien movies, but from a non sci-fi, non alien fan, its not 3 bad.

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Please use the comments bellow only to comment on this post - to write your own review, please comment on the main post for this movie.