SHOCKTOBER SPECIAL: Xtro - Will'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".

When Sam is abducted by aliens In a flash of light, the only witness is his young son, Tony. Needless to say, no one believes Tony, and it is assumed that Sam has run out on his wife and kid.

3 years later (apparently - Tony doesn't seem to have aged in that time) Sam comes back, a new man... 

It's that time of year, and I've been running my annual side project Shocktoberfest, where I kick back and (try to) enjoy the movies without making notes. I've found that, no only do I have more fun, but the reviews come easier (truth be told, my "notes" read more like a synopsis, which seems to cloud the way I talk about, and judge, the films) so (apart from keeping my tally) I've flown note-free on this too...

This could have been a very cool film if they'd kept us in the dark for a while; had same come back, seeming himself but doing occasional wierd shit, like eating his son's snakes eggs, but not really telling us is Sam really was kidnapped, or just mad...

From the family's point of view (Tony, mum and mums new fella') this is pretty much what happens, unfortunately viewers know all along, as we see an alien creature (Cheap looking, but still kind of awesome) land, kill a couple of folks and do something strange to a woman's face before melting into a puddle of extra-terrestrial snot, before Sam returns by (spoiler, highlight to see) being born, whole, adult and rather graphicly, from the uturus of the woman who got face raped !!! 

So Sam informs Tony that he was taken to another world, where he was "changed" so that he could survive there, and that he's come back for his boy. He passes on his changes (including some bonkers mind-over matter skills - more on that later) to his lad via what looks like a lovebite - squik!

From the 'not-really-a-mystery' portion of events, we progress to the 'mad-as-pants' part of the movie, as  Tony transforms 2 of his toys into a life-size killer action man, and a midget clown with a lethal yo-yo, before turning the nanny into an egg machine, and having the midget fill the refrigerator with grey porridge in which to incubate said eggs.

Tony's Mum, unaware that her house is fast becoming a messed-up drugs vision, but fully aware that her husband is back after 3 years, staying with her and her fiancée, claiming to have possibly been abducted by aliens and now claiming amnesia (which, by the way, she is totally unfazed by), has elected to take Sam back to thier holiday cottage (where the abduction took place) to help him get his memories back.

A flame is rekindled and (mid coitus) we enter what I call in my head the 'Brindle Fly' segment, as Sam begins to slowly turn back into his alien form - one puss filled welt at a time!

Despite the insanity, the ending is so wonderfully bleak, that you have to give this movie a bit of a pass - it's nothing if not entertaining, even if it does suffer a bit from madness.

Apparently there are 2 sequels, which I may check out some time around the end of 2012, when this protect is over (or possibly for this or next Shocktoberfest... who knows!)

Body Count: 7
Boob Count: 2 pairs
Animal Body Count: 1.5 (one and an egg)
Most memorable Death: What a Big Baby!

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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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Contamination - Will's Review

*****Spoilers - again******

So, one of the alternate titles for this one was "Alien 2" (It's not uncommon for Italian movies to try and sell themselves as sequels to big hits), and featuring as it does, green goo, pulsing eggs and exploding torsos, It does have as much in common as some legitimate 'in name only' type sequels ('Open Water 2' I'm looking at you...), but that's where the similarities end.

Set firmly on earth, the movie opens with an abandoned cargo ship sailing into New York (Why is it always New York???) , It's quickly boarded and put into quarantine, where the crew are found to be huddled together in a couple of rooms, burst open, and the cargo of "Coffee" turns out  to be alien eggs, which periodicly burst open, causing anyone in the vicinity to explode.

Which happens pretty much instantly, begging the question "Why were the crew crammed into a couple of rooms", What? Did they stop dinner half way through and go play 'sardines' while the 'hider' carried one of the eggs? whatever, it's never explained!

Speaking of the cargo, this movie contains a brilliant example of the odd dialogue you only encounter in Italian films:

Of course!

All in all though, not a bad film for a throwaway 80's Sci-Horror, the makeup effects were great, and the exploding torsos would have been, if only they hadn't been shot from an angle that made it obvious that the actor who was about to explode had just gained about 50 pounds. When we finally meet a full grown alien creature, on the other hand, it is realisably bad, and has a helerious method of killing / eating that's almost worth seeing the movie for!


Body Count: 18
Boob Count: 0
Animal Body Count: 1
Most Memorable Death: Eaten by an arm

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Contamination - Lisa's Review

***** Full of big fat spoilers as always. *****

This movie is said to be a rip off of Alien.

Apart from the existence of pulsating eggs, I didn’t see it myself.

So our movie kicks off with a large ship, The Carribean Lady that has sailed into New York completely abandoned. It had been to the tropics. The relevant people in big white contamination suits go on board and the ship is like a ghost ship, the captains log (titter) is found to have the most recent entry only 24 hours earlier by the captain Pedro Mendez where everything appeared to be fine.

It seems the crew were disturbed in the middle of their dinner as the table is full of incomplete meals.

So the guys take to a door…with all the deliberation and talk about going through it, its obvious we’ll fine our answer to the disappearance of the crew on the other side. Sure enough our Captain Mendez’s corpse falls out in not too great a state it has to be said (pretty good make up here though). A further room reveals the rest of the crew in a similar state. Lots of blood, goo, split skin, burst open bodies and entrails. What I find amusing so far is the actors stating the obvious at every turn, just in case you weren’t sure what was happening by looking at it on the screen.

They seem to think we need some kind of narration.

The discovery of green pods which spew ‘green gunk’ to give it the description used in the movie is also announced via our actors. They are found in the midst of a massive shipment of coffee. The guesses at what exactly they are range from a big avocado to a melon and the wonderful “They look like big green eggs to me”. You know the saying ‘Curiosity killed the cat’? Well it killed all but 1 of the men in big white suits in this instance when they just had to lift up one of these pulsating green eggs. It explodes its ‘green gunk’ all over their faces which proceed to melt. I was finding this scene really amusing down to the sounds made and the general feel of the scene, but then their abdomens all exploded rather impressively spewing organs everywhere leaving me open mouthed in delight feeling what only fans of horror gore know. Nice!!

The guys are obviously all dead and the one guy who survives is put into ‘decontamination’ with no clothes which is he rather non plussed at as he is a tad cold and misses his Gucci watch etc… you would think he would be feeling rather lucky to be alive after what he just witnessed, but a little water washing him down and a lack of clothes obviously was much more of a trial.

We follow with examination of one of the eggs under laboratory conditions by Colonel Stella Holmes who is now in charge it seems. A big needle is stuck in it and green gunk is taken out, or as we are informed 100% acid. Ooooooooh no…cute white rat… massive syringe of 100% acid…..result? Exploding rat. How on earth they did this I have no idea, but the effect was dramatic and very good for the movies time (1981 I think). From the year I would doubt (thankfully) that’s its a real rat though.

Kudos for effects good enough to bring that into question though.

After much deliberation they finally crack onto the fact that the eggs must not be from this world and could possibly have come back via an astronaut on a mission. All of a sudden they remember a mission to Mars where 2 astronauts supposedly encountered eggs.. Hmmmm. One of the astronauts (Hubbard) who reported what he saw was written off as mad and lost his job. The other (Hamilton) who was hypnotised by the eggs on Mars completely denied he had even seen anything of the sort. He was supposedly killed in his private plane years later.

So they have no choice but to use ‘mad’ Hubbard as their hired help to look into the eggs.

Sooooo after a very odd scene where Colonel Holmes goes to visit Hubbard to tell him she now believes him (she was originally on the board that struck him off). She also shows him photos of the eggs and ask him to go to South America in search of the coffee plantation the eggs came from with them to help. After a bit of refusal, a slur of not being a real man from Ms Holmes and a slap across the face to prove he is from Hubbard, he finally agrees. What I found most odd about English Hubbard is the fact when he talks it sounds like he’s reading straight out of a novel…. Since when did you describe something as ‘radiating light’ when you’re talking about it. Nice dialogue I suppose. The Americans must think all English people are remarkably intelligent and well educated.

So we’re in South America now with Hubbard, Holmes and a cop – Aris, who is a bit of a cad and describes Holmes as ‘a waste of a good looking women’… I think he means one with brains…. Oh dear, how sad.

While having a shower, Stella gets locked in her bathroom with a pesky egg!!! One quite amusing scene shows her banging on the bathroom door shouting “Help! Let me out of here!! Theres an egg!”, Mwhahahahahaha. Is it wrong that I found it funny. Meanwhile Aris and Hubbard have met up and are wondering where she has got to. That doesn’t send them in any mad rush to find her though. We get treated to another line of “Get me out of here, theres an egg!”. I have another giggle.

However now Hubbard rushes to the rescue and gets her out just in time before the egg explodes.

Now we get treated to a twist in the tale. It seems Hamilton (Hubbards original astronaut partner) is alive and well and living in South America. They had planned for the egg to kill Stella and when it explodes and doesn’t kill her, he can sense that the egg is no more and she is still alive. Hmmmmmmm, the plot thickens.

Stella and Aris cunningly work out that they are breeding the eggs when they are trying to buy a massive shipment of coffee (by mentioning the ship it came in on – stupid move). Stella obviously recognises Hamilton and they are duly tied up for their stupidity. Moving scenes follow where they get all intimate and kissy like…. Come on!! Wheres the action?? Meanwhile Hubbard is in a small plane flying over the plantation trying to see whats going on. He has something of a bumpy landing right in the middle of a field. Uh Oh!! He finds a partially dead (alive for about 30 seconds) man who says that ‘white zombies’ did it to him when asked what fate befell him. He finds lots more green eggs in the field and hides out of the way when he hears voices. Lots of men in white contamination suits and masks (ahhh white zombies) appear and start collecting eggs in steel boxes.

As only 1 suited guy is left behind, he whacks him over the head and nicks his suit joining the other guys.

So we’re nearing the end it seems. As in a game you’ve painstakingly reached the end of, we’re about to meet our bad guy. The monster which has been spewing forth these eggs is not as naff as I thought he’d be (reminded me a bit of Kang or Kodos from the Simpsons). It was all slimy like and not too disappointing. One by one Aris and Stella (don’t know why I prefer his surname and her first name, but I do) are lured towards the beast by way of its hypnotic flashing eye (kind of like a car headlight) Aris is consumed somewhat like an anaconda consumes its prey. Pretty tame scenes, nothing disturbing here. Cue Hubbard to the rescue. He has made his way through the building by way of taking Hamiltons female accomplice hostage. A few people are shot, he comes to the rescue and just as you think he is about to be hypnotised by the beastie, he shoots it in its big eyeball.

Long death scene short, beasties bursts into flames and dies and at the same time Hamilton bursts open with innards that look remarkably like blamange (disappointed with the lack of blood here which made the other guys demises much more dramatic).

Seems they were linked…

We are left with the statement that Hamilton didn’t come back to earth, he is still on Mars. What came back in his body, was not him. The final scene is a New York street

and a big pulsating green egg sitting in a bin bag in a back street which explodes just as the credits roll.

Soooo, what did I think? Well it wasn’t awful, there were some good effects. The monster wasn’t too bad. There were some stereotypes, sure and some laughable bits, but all in all, it was an ok movie. Pretty typical of this sort of thing for the 80’s. Probably worth it for the exploding torsos throughout the movie.

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