When it was released in June 1982, Steven Spielberg’s E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial inspired any number of rip-offs. The biggest example of these is Mac and Me, which has received a second life thanks to Paul Rudd’s recurring gag on Conan O’Brien’s late-night show. Like Spielberg’s brilliant, moving and heartfelt classic, 1983’s British film Xtro has both a boy and an alien on the poster. That’s precisely where the similarities between the two projects stop. Though it does have a similarity to Mac and Me in that it’s disturbing as can be. But, to the credit of Xtro, in this case being disturbing was actually the point. No, Xtro was more inspired by Ridley Scott’s Alien.
Like E.T., Alien was directly responsible for the early to mid ’80s alien movie boom. But what sets Xtro apart (both in terms of quality and how likely it is to wedge its way into your memories) from stuff like Nightbeast, Parasite, Strange Invaders, and Creature? Let’s dive into it and see.
Xtro Is Utterly Unpredictable
Like 1993’s underrated Fire in the Sky, Xtro incorporates an alien abduction. And, like most cinematic alien abductions, there’s a big bright light and some screaming people followed swiftly by darkness, silence, and one fewer screaming person. But Fire in the Sky doesn’t have a father getting abducted right in front of his son.
Furthermore, when the abducted person in Fire in the Sky returns, he doesn’t start out as an alien that freaks out a driving couple (in what is one of the ’80s better jump scares), kill that couple, then make its way to a nearby house where it forcibly impregnates a woman. Unfortunately, that’s the last we see of the alien that is shown on the film’s poster. It’s unfortunate because it’s a pretty near little practical effects-generated creation.
In the alien’s stead we get the aforementioned abducted father, Sam, who proceeds to return home to his wife, Rachel (who now has a new boyfriend, Joe), and son, Tony. But Rachel, Joe, and Tony don’t live in their apartment building alone, as we also meet a cantankerous downstairs neighbor and au pair Analise Mercier. The latter is played by Maryam d’Abo, who 007 fans will recognize as the Bond girl from Timothy Dalton’s first superspy adventure, The Living Daylights.
No One Is Safe
Every character in Xtro seems to be going through strange circumstances even before they come in contact with the alien Sam. For one, little Tony has a recurring nightmare where he wakes up covered in more blood than Johnny Depp in A Nightmare on Elm Street. It’s not one hundred percent clear what this recurring nightmare is foreshadowing, outside of general ominous impending deathly events. It’s also unclear why, when Sam attempts to call his family just before returning home, his hand melts the phone. Xtro is a movie that doesn’t operate with a concrete logic at its core.
[RELATED: 7 Great Movies to Watch After Sinners]
Once Sam moves back in with his family, that’s when things get even weirder. Tony has a pet snake, and about midway through the movie, he catches his father eating the eggs of that pet snake. There’s then a scene of the snake sneaking into their downstairs neighbor’s apartment, at which point it gets mixed up into a salad, discovered, and killed.
It’s around this same point that the alien Sam drinks his son’s blood which, apparently, gives the boy powers. Tony uses these powers to summon a six-foot toy soldier, who kills the downstairs neighbor with the help of a similarly anthropomorphized toy clown (really just a little person actor in clown makeup typically bringing a shining spinning toy close to camera).
But it doesn’t stop there, as Tony and the clown then go over to Mercer’s apartment, where the clown knocks her out with a wobbly hammer and Tony puts his mouth on her stomach, which creates blue veins, indicating that she’s been impregnated by the alien seed as well. At that point we arrive at the film’s most random scene. Tony summons a toy tank to kill Mercer’s boyfriend, and when it doesn’t get the job done, a panther does.
The movie’s climax sees Sam physically turn into an alien. But, instead of the crab walking one we saw at the beginning, he’s more of a snake. A snake that can use its mind to give his wife’s new boyfriend (who, for whatever reason, is still in the picture even though she’s also back with her husband) an aneurism.
If you’re hoping for a happy ending, there isn’t one. Times two, in fact, because Rachel is forced to watch her husband and son enter the same light that took Sam in the opening act, at which point she goes home, discovers a bunch of alien eggs, and is killed by an infant, snake-like alien. Cut to credits.
At the time of release and still today, Xtro was dismissed as an exploitation film. It’s a fair assessment, but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing interesting here. It has to be the one movie on the planet with a vicious panther in an apartment building.
When it comes to low budget early ’80s alien horror flicks, Xtro is the most ambitious. And, tied for first with The Deadly Spawn, it’s the most grotesque. It’s not the easiest movie to find considering the DVD is long out of print and it’s not available for streaming, but if you ever stumble across it, pick it up.
The post This 1980s Alien Horror Movie Will Probably Scar You for Life (And It’s Almost Impossible to Watch) appeared first on ComicBook.com.
