Limited Edition Boxset

Second Sight Films, out now

Following an alien abduction three years previously, Sam Phillips reappears with no memory of what happened to him. Is he really Sam, and if not, what sort of beast is at loose in the family home?

I really wanted to see this film. It was December 1982 and I’d just turned 14, but the ‘X’ certificate meant that I was too young to savour the excitement of this sci-shocker that warned us ‘Not all Extra Terrestrials are friendly.’ And so it sat on my ‘must watch’ list until it was released on home video the following year. And what a crushing disappointment – it was awful, but much more than that, it made no sense whatsoever. Flash forwards 35 years, and how does it fare?

I have to give credit to Second Sight for producing this limited edition box set, which also includes a CD of the soundtrack and soft cover book with new writing on the movie, because it really doesn’t deserve this sort of care and attention. But once you’ve endured the main feature and moved on to the Xtras you actually start to see it in a new light. The director Harry Bromley-Davenport knows it’s a bad film – he openly admits it – and went on to make sequels The Second Encounter (1990) and Watch the Skies (1995). We’re also treated here to some test footage from upcoming Part 4 – The Big One!

Truth is, this is a low budget exploitationer, and was co-produced with pre-Elm Street New Line Cinema’s Bob Shaye. It’s structured to include a series of shock moments with (apparently) random linking material bridging the gaps. The infamous birthing scene is still grotesque and visceral as a fully-grown Sam is birthed from an unfortunate victim who has had a duck-foot-shaped sucker planted over her mouth. The other creature effects are also gloopy and icky, ranging from the father sucking his son’s blood through a scruff of skin, to chomping through his own umbilical cord.

What’s most bizarre are the powers that the alien has. For no explained reason he turns a toy panther into a real one, an Action Man into a man-sized bayonet-wielding killer and a toy tank into a lethal killing machine. He’s also telekinetic as well as being capable of transforming a wooden clown into a malevolent killer. And just to up the titivation stakes, future Bond girl Maryam d’Abo drops her clothes in her bizarre role as a foreign au pair.

You’re spoilt with multiple versions in this set – original ending, alternate ending, original UK video version, and 2018 director’s version where Bromley-Davenport has fiddled with the colours. Film critic Roger Ebert famously said “It’s movies like this that give movies a bad name,” though I feel this gives the movie an infamy it doesn’t really deserve. It’s yucky, but far tamer than the more gruesome splatter material that was troubling the film censors at the time of relief. In featurette ‘The World of Xtro’ the movie’s biggest fan (and he truly is) identifies what he sees as the movie’s nuances and strengths. I remain unconvinced.

Verdict: Xtro is xcrable, xcessive low-grade nonsense. Watch this release for the joyful interviews with the cast and crew, who are under no illusion of having created high art, but the main feature has little to no merit. 7/10 for the set (2/10 for the movie)

Nick Joy