Review: Xtro
Blu-ray: Xtro (1982)
Written and directed by Harry Bromley Davenport (a man whose 12 IMDB directorial credits are 25% the Xtro trilogy) Xtro is a low budget, yet strangely addictive sci-fi movie that narrowly avoided prosecution on the original ‘video nasties’ list.
Sam Phillips (Philip Sayer) is playing with his family in the back garden of his English home when a bright light appears and seemingly abducts him. 3 years later the light returns and dumps a half human/ half alien creature who slaughters a couple on a country road, before impregnating a woman who then gives birth to a fully formed Sam…a scene that has to be watched to be believed!
Sam heads to London to find his family and develops a strange bond with his son.
It is then that things start to get really weird.
I remember owning Xtro on ex-rental VHS, and then many years later buying it on DVD. Watching it now on Blu-ray in this fantastic release from Second Sight Films is like watching it for the very 1st time. A glorious picture makes the infamous ‘birthing sequence’ even more eye popping, and the informative and entertaining special features add a whole new level of enjoyment to what has always been a favourite movie of mine.
Xtro overcomes its low budget restraints by presenting a narrative that takes so many unexpected left turns that you’d swear it was going around in circles, but these only keep you guessing as to what weird and wonderful event may happen next…you would truly never guess some of the stuff that happens in this movie.
The visual effects are of course pre-CGI, and despite the budget once again restricting the true vision of what Harry Bromley Davenport would have liked to have put onscreen, they are effective and most definitely shocking at times.
Tim Dry does a great job of contorting his body to play ‘the monster’, and the scene where he stalks through the woods is a vision that still comes into my mind whenever I am in a wooded area at night.
An essential purchase for all Xtro fans, and also anyone else who loves low budget sci-fi/horror.
You can buy Xtro by clicking HERE. ALL money raised by purchasing from Amazon via our website is given back to our listeners and followers in upcoming competition prizes. The more people buy, the bigger our prizes.
Review by Dave (host of 60 Minutes With) from discs kindly supplied by Second Sight Films.
