From: wcstom@alfred.carleton.ca (Tom Hamill)
Subject: XTRO ***SPOILERS*** (was Re: Movie sorta like Aliens name ???)
Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies
Organization: Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 17:53:25 GMT

In article sprooney@unix1.tcd.ie (Simon Rooney) writes:
> [no idea who asked the original question]
>>Whass that movie that is sorta like the Alien series (chestbursters, etc.) ?
>>I've seen the name here a few times but I always forget it and I really would
>>like to check out this flick.   (Please email or look to see if 800 people 
>>have already responded to me before you post. Thanks.)
>
>Erm... it's easier just to post it.
>I think you mean:
>XTRO! 
>I saw it a while ago, and can't remember much of it (it was at a
>party), but I remember thinking it was Alien.
>
I discovered XTRO because of the "sequel", XTRO II, an aliens-in-space
shoot-em-up starring the quintessential 'B' movie actor, Jan Michael
Vincent.  In reality, the only connection between the two that I could
see was the name of the movie.  XTRO was produced in Britian, and
although we get a lot of British movies here in Canada, I'd never
heard of any of the actors.  XTRO II was made with American actors and
had no internal references to its predecessor at all.

In any event, Simon, you are correct, the overriding impression I got
of these movies was that they were Alien in a different disguise,
although II was more of a direct ripoff than the original XTRO, which
was produced, I believe, sometime in the late '70's.

(How on earth do you insert those control-L's into a posting?)

                **********SPOILERS FOLLOW*******




XTRO is a horror/sci-fi thriller that is basically similar to the
eggs-f'hugger-coccooning scenario(though not necessarily in that
order)that characterizes 'Alien'.  And while it is impossible to
ignore the similarities between the two, the story lines and settings
are so different that the one is not just a clone of the other--no
matter which one came first.

Considering it must have been a low budget film, the special effects
in XTRO were very well done.  I particularily liked the pregnant woman
sequence when she gives birth on her kitchen floor to the man who was
spirited away by the bright light whatever-it-was in the opening
scenes, the toys in the boy's room that take on a life of their own,
and the coccooned woman egg factory in the bathtub.  This movie has
enormous cult status potential.

XTRO II, the sequel, has no connection whatsoever to the original.  It
was patterned after the action adventure aspects of 'Aliens', but done
much, much, much worse.  

Jan Michael is some kind of space cowboy/troubleshooter that gets the
call for help from the scientists in an isolated space lab somewhere
in the galaxy.  They've been doing genetic experiments on viruses in
hopes of finding a cure for some terrible viral-based disease that
causes humans to undergo some kind of metamorphosis, both mentally and
physically, but instead, they produce a new lifeform, the disease's
virus in a giant form larger than a man.

While the creature itself is excellent, the rest of the movie is so
trite and hackneyed that it is little more than a minor curiosity,
since it is basically the alien-in-the-air-ducts type of 'adventure'
story.

Still, if you do like cheesey sci-fi, it has the quality of the
'Battle Beyond The Stars' type of production, although nowhere near 
as amusing.

---tom

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