XTRO (1983)

Xtro photo from http://www.britmovie.co.uk

XTRO,' 'XTRO,' READ ALL ABOUT THE GORE
Miami Herald, The (FL)
September 13, 1983
Author: BILL COSFORD Herald Movie Critic
Estimated printed pages: 2

Xtro has the year's best promotional tag line -- "Some extra-terrestrials aren't friendly" -- but as is often the case, the rest of the movie isn't so hot. Apparently the promotional effort exhausted the production team before the fact, or something.??Though Xtro offers some of the more unpleasant images in the screen history of father-son relationships, during the moments when the film is neither cheap-looking nor revolting, it does affect a rather eerie tone. Those moments are few, however.
Little Tony lost his dad three years before the action begins. He literally lost him -- one moment they were playing in their back yard somewhere in Great Britain, and the next Dad was gone in a flash of otherworldly light. When Dad returns, he is not the same.

Boy, is he not the same. At first he is apparently little more than inter-galactic larva, requiring the services of a monster rapist to find him a place to be born. This is accomplished, an unsuspecting woman carries to term in less than 30 seconds, and amidst much shrieking and rending of flesh, Dad is emitted, fully grown. He cuts his own umbilical, stops to melt a pay phone and heads for home, where he sucks little Tony's shoulder until the boy is no longer what he seems, either.

Little Tony develops the ability to make his toys come alive, takes hideous revenge on the neighbor lady when she kills his snake, and puts the au pair girl in a compromising position. Soon there are larvae and E.T. eggs all over the place. It's gross.

With a little more thought and an extra dollar or two, the
filmmakers might have come up with a scandalously funny spoof of E.T. They chose a festival of splatter effects instead, aiming Xtro squarely at that segment of the audience for whom The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and John Carpenter's The Thing were good stuff but too subtle.

Movie Review

Xtro (R) *

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CAST

Bernice Stegers, Philip Sayer, Danny Brainin, Simon Nash, Maryam D'Abo, David Cardy

CREDITS

Director: Harry Bromley Davenport

Producer: Mark Forstater

Screenwriters: Robert Smith, Iain Cassie

Cinematographer: John Metcalfe

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A New Line Cinema release

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Running time: 82 minutes

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Vulgar language, nudity, implicit sex, considerable violence and gore

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At DADE: Trianon, Apollo, Palm Avenue, Marina, Northside, Movies of Kendall, Regency; BROWARD: Coral Ridge, Movies of Pompano, Diplomat Mall, Coral Springs Movie Center, Movies of Plantation, Lakeshore Drive-In, Thunderbird Drive-In; PALM BEACH: Village Green, Movies at Town Center, Movies of Lake Worth, Beach Drive-In, Delray Drive-In.
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SCHLOCKY SCREEN SCREAMS - TWO TERROR-BLE FILMS: 'XTRO' AND 'BASKET CASE'

Philadelphia Daily News (PA) - April 4, 1983

Author: JOE BALTAKE, Daily News Movie Reviewer

* "Xtro." A thriller starring Philip Sayer, Bernice Steges and Simon Nash. Directed by Harry Bromley Davenport from a script by Iain Casi and Robert Smith. Photographed by John Metcalfe. Music by Davenport. Creature by Francis Coates. Running Time: 85 minutes. Rated R. At the Goldman Twin, 15th St., between Chestnut and Market. (Screened at the Goldman Twin).

* "Basket Case." A comedy thriller starring Kevin Van Hentenryck and Teri Susan Smith. Written and directed by Frank Henenlotter. Photographed by Bruce Torbet. Music by Gus Russo. Running Time: 85 minutes. Not rated. Shown at Midnight every Friday and Saturday at the TLA-Roxy, 2021 Sansom St. (Screened at the TLA-Roxy)

It's no secret that movie terror has become determinedly unwholesome, what with most of the on-screen carnage being the direct result of someone's (or something's) insatiable appetite for control.

What is surprising - and perhaps even more dubious - is that most modern horror films are content with being affably terrible. They work at being funny-bad - schlocky - and in both Harry Bromley Davenport's British import, ''Xtro," and Frank Henenlotter's midnight flick, "Basket Case," we have schlock horror movies that stress their ineptitude with swaggering pride.

One only wishes that they were worse. (That way, they'd be better. Get it?) What I'm saying is that these are two oedipal horrorfests (about bloodthirsty relatives) whose tackier details and overall cheapness fail to work in their favor.

Of the two, "Xtro" is the most pathetic, a lurid movie made for people of sociopathic tastes or for junk-movie addicts looking for something a little kinky. Its ads imply that "Xtro" is a nasty put-down of Steven Spielberg's ''E.T. - The Extra-Terrestrial." But its nastiness is closer to David Cronenberg's "The Brood."

Its oedipal plot is about a towheaded boy named Tony (Simon Nash) whose father is really an alien being. Three years ago, dad (Philip Sayer) got weary of being an earthbound human (obviously, a fate worse than death), regained his former scaly/-

sticky appearance and disappeared in a flash of light.

Tony has been having nightmares ever since and, lately, they've been more intense. That's because his dad is en route from his planet to claim little Tony.

To accomplish this, dad has to transform himself into a human again, and, to accomplish this, he has to be reborn. This particular sequence and the scenes detailing alien intercourse are singularly unpleasant. Sitting through them is roughly akin to having a double-barrel rifle pointed between your eyes. "Xtro" is an endurance ordeal.

In terms of special effects, "Xtro" is amusing. It's the kind of movie that would use hubcaps for flying saucers if it could get away with it.

Much more amusing - at least, diabolically funny - is "Basket Case," a self-concious black comedy that already has gained ground as a cult favorite in New York.

Its oedipal plot is about a sweet, emotionally stunted kid named Duane (Kevin Van Hentenryck) who lugs around the lardlike body of his former Siamese twin brother, Eli, in a huge basket.

Whereas "Xtro" is determined to do violence to our minds, "Basket Case" is content with merely jabbing at our thoughts. It is more concerned with being casually funny but works too hard at it to provoke anything more robust than a giggle.

Of course, depending on your priorities, you might find humor in its grotesquely untalented performers, atrocious lighting, haphazard compositions, stop-action animation and dogged avoidance of logic: Its plot is about Eli wanting to punish the three veterinarians (yes, veterinarians) who separated him from Duane - a plot that is as unenthralling as it is obviously unconvincing.