Xtro (1982)
(In French, On Cable TV, November 2019) I’d call Xtro a big bag of yuck, but a “bag” presupposes an arrangement of elements into a container and that’s an awfully generous description for a film without much of a coherent plot. Well, that’s not true: The plot of Xtro is quite simple and has to do with an alien killing humans. It’s what’s around the plot that scarcely makes sense, as we go from a standard monster movie plot (far more violent and gross than the 1950s ones, but not any more sophisticated) to a fever dream of homicidal life-sized action figures, homicidal toy tanks, homicidal cougars and homicidal … well, you get the point. The special effects are filled with goo, forced incubation, nightmarish vaginal imagery and other visuals designed to make you queasy. And if I must acknowledge any effectiveness to writer-director Harry Bromley Davenport’s mess, it’s in those nightmarish images, potent without being admirable. It’s all in the service of an intensely nihilistic, meaningless story, so don’t be surprised to hate Xtro even while acknowledging its visual strengths. I half-suspect that the film, like many 1980s horror movies, was more about freaking the mundanes (and pleasing the gore-hounds) than delivering a coherent story with something to say. You can see numerous lifts from the first Alien movie, for instance, and pushing the parasitic face-hugger cycle as far as anyone can stand. I still loathe the result, and I can’t imagine watching Xtro another time—it was bad enough that I fell asleep midwatch through and had to rewind to catch its demented second half. I shouldn’t have.