Fuji reviews Xtro

[Fuji Vice]

Xtro

Sam and his son Tony are enjoying a relaxing day at the family cottage, until a strange light appears in the sky and whisks Sam away. Three years pass and Tony has recurring nightmares, though nobody believes his story, preferring to think that Sam simply walked out on his family. However nothing could be further from the truth, as Sam returns and soon rejoins his stunned family. Unfortunately Sam has changed for the worse and soon it becomes apparent that he's trying to change Tony too.

Xtro is, without a doubt in my mind, one of the weirdest movies ever made. Released in 1983 as an early effort from New Line Cinema, it has developed a large cult following over the years for several reasons. One would be the fact that it is completely and totally insane on every level imaginable and another would be the bizarre "birth" scene that really cannot be summed up by words alone. Written and directed by Harry Bromley Davenport (who also did the soundtrack) and starring such luminaries as Phillip Sayer, Danny Brainin and future Bond girl Maryam D'Abo, it truly is one of a kind. As that is the case, and because I love movies like this, I thought I'd give it the full on Fuji treatment for today's review, complete with laughs, toy soldiers, midget clowns and even one of the goriest, most disgusting things you'll ever see in your life. Sound good? Of course it does, so let's get this shit started!

"I hope this light doesn't shrink my nicely tailored shirt."​

As I mentioned above, the film starts off with a bang, as good old Sam gets kidnapped by aliens (I think, they never really explain anything in this film) right in front of his son Tony. We quickly flash 3 years into the future, and Tony is having all sorts of fucked up dreams about what happened. Meanwhile, his mother, Rachel, tries to calm him and reveals to her new lover that she believes Sam simply left them. Of course she didn't bother to you know, fill out a missing persons report or anything, so perhaps she never really gave a shit about Sam in the first place? Anyhow, she and her new man Joe (these names are seriously original) live in their apartment with a nanny named Annalise who enjoys playing hide and seek AND hide the salami, as we'll see shortly. All of these characters are going about their own business, trying to rebuild until one fateful night when a flashlight that's supposed to be a spaceship flies over the countryside and then crashes. From out of it comes an alien that quickly starts making its way to the main road only to encounter a couple who are out for a moonlight drive.

"Do you know the way to San Jose?"​

The motorists bump into the poor little, erm, whatever the hell that thing is supposed to be and stop to investigate. Bad idea morons, because clearly driving into an alien is totally going to piss it off. It shoots some sort of laser beam at the dude, killing him and bloodying his eyes, and then goes to make a tasty snack of the chicks abdomen. After that little bit of brutality, it crawls its way to a cottage in the country, where it encounters and impregnates a woman. I say impregnates because that's what I think it was doing when it had a large phallic thing shoved down her throat, though the fact that she also gives birth a few moments later kind of proves it too. Oh yes, I said she gives birth, but did I mention that its actually to a FULLY GROWN MAN!!?!? Seriously, this is one of the most bizarre and over the top scenes in the history of cinema and here it is for your viewing pleasure, but be warned, its FUCKING GRAPHIC!!!

[video=youtube;aIJzozj4U_I]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIJzozj4U_I&oref=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fresults%3Fsear ch_query%3Dxtro%2Bbirth%2Bscene%26oq%3Dxtro%2Bbirt h%2Bscene%26gs_l%3Dyoutube.3...2458.8067.0.8611.16 .16.0.0.0.0.263.1662.12j3j1.16.0...0.0...1ac.WzsyH G3-qa8[/video]​

While this is happening, Tony has another nightmare and interrupts his mom fucking Joe. She goes to tuck him into bed when suddenly he has blood all over him, telling her it came from "daddy". Alright, this would creep the shit out of me if I had the time to figure out what was going on, but I don't, because we quickly shift back to Sam, who is stealing the clothes off the people the other alien killed earlier. He quickly heads into town to find his son, who has been dropped off at school by Maryam D'Abo. Why is it so important that I mention who dropped him off at school? Why because after she drops him off she goes to visit a friend and the next thing you know, he's eating her out (sort of, he's licking her inner thigh but that's good enough for me) and then she sits up. Why is all of this important? Look out below....

Spoiler

"TWO FUCKING TITS = FOUR FUCKING STARS!!!"​

Meanwhile, Tony finds Sam and the two of them are quickly discovered by Rachel, who is understandably pissed at Sam for disappearing. Well she's pissed for a little bit, until Sam tells her he just can't remember where he's been for the last three years. Not only is the old amnesia story totally implausible, she FUCKING BUYS IT and invites him back to the apartment. Shit hits the fan when Joe gets home later and the two men have a sword fight through the whole place while Rachel and Tony look on screaming. Okay, so that doesn't happen, but would it really have surprised you if it did? Nope, instead things slow down for a bit while they all eat dinner uncomfortably, but Sam isn't hungry for human food. You see, he's changed, and we get a little hint of how much when we see him eating Tony's pet snakes eggs. Tony sees this too and he freaks out and runs away. Sam eventually catches up to him and tells him all about how he's changed and how he wants to change Tony too. He then proceeds to give him a hickey (I'm not joking) which presumably does the trick. Well it must, because later at night, Tony's in his room and suddenly he's able to make his toy clown turn into a real life one.

"Send in the clowns...and the midgets...and the rubber hammers."​

Yes, midget clowns with rubber hammers rule, and anyone who says otherwise is totally lying. Tony actually gets the hang of these new powers pretty quickly, and soon he's doing all sorts of cool things with them. In fact, he gets so pissed at his neighbour for killing his beloved snake that he conjures up this little friend to deal with her.

"It ain't toy soldiers any more bitch."​

Later on, Joe leaves a note (aptly titled "The Note" and again I am not making this up) which I guess is his way of breaking up with Rachel. She doesn't seem to care though, since she's busy heading up to the cottage with Sam to relax screw like wild dogs. She's left Annalise in charge of Tony but Annalise also has sex on the brain and so invites her boyfriend over. Tony manages to convince Annalise to play hide and seek, which is simply a ruse to get her into an elevator where she's attacked and knocked out by the midget clown before being put into a cocoon. Her boyfriend finally clues in that she hasn't come back and goes looking for her, only to be confronted by a toy tank that fires real ammo. He runs away from it and locks himself in another room, only to be confronted by....

Spoiler

"A GODDAMN FUCKING PANTHER!!!!"​

I know you're probably trying to figure out where that came from but really, why bother at this point? Joe manages to piece together some pretty obvious clues and realizes Sam may be responsible for the murders at the beginning of the film. He heads up to the cottage with Tony to try and help Rachel before its too late. Guess what? Yep, its too late, as Sam has started to change in form, scaring the crap out of Rachel in the process. She runs, only to be met by Joe, and the two go to confront Sam. This isn't a good move for Joe, as Sam starts screaming some sort of nasty alien wail that literally melts his brain. He then takes off as a bright light fills the sky and Rachel follows. As she comes over a hill, this is what she sees...

"Now that's what I call phoning home!"​

Sam has fully changed into his alien form and Tony has started to as well. The two of them board the ship (I think there's a ship back there but the special effects are fucking awful) leaving Rachel alone. What a depressing ending, but hey, its not over yet, as Rachel heads home. When she gets there she discovers a bunch of eggs in an overturned freezer (Maryam D'Abo birthed them by the way) and instead of running right the fuck out of the house she does what all stupid people in movies like this do. Yes, that's right folks, she picks one of the eggs up and before long, this happens...

"What the fuck did you think was going to happen you idiot?"​

With that, Xtro is over, but trust me, it sits with you long afterwards. I mean, when a movie has midget clowns, fully grown male birth scenes, Maryam D'Abo's tits, toy soldiers, consumption of snake eggs and panthers how could it not? Okay, so in case you couldn't tell, I absolutely fucking love this movie but I can see why some (or most) would not. So with that being said, I can't in good faith give it any higher score than a 5.5/10 but I will say that if you like your films really, really weird, you won't find a better one to watch than Xtro.

"Coming up next, what's wrong with this man?"​