Xtro

Xtro
Film poster
Directed by	Harry Bromley Davenport
Produced by	Mark Forstater
Written by	Harry Bromley Davenport
Starring	Philip Sayer Maryam d'Abo Susie Silvey
Music by	Harry Bromley Davenport
Cinematography	John Metcalfe
Editing by	Nicolas Gaster
Distributed by	New Line Cinema (USA)
Release date(s)	6 August 1982 (1982-08-06)
Running time	81 minutes
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English

Xtro is a low-budget British science fiction horror film made in 1982 and directed by Harry Bromley Davenport and co-produced by Bob Shaye.

Plot

Sam Phillips (Philip Sayer) and his child Tony (Simon Nash) are playing outside their farm. The father is abducted by a strong light.

Three years later, the light returns, and plants a seed. A half-human half-alien creature grows up, and when it moves it is run over by a car. Ben (Robert Pereno) is attacked and killed when he looks for the runaway man. Jane (Katherine Best) is also killed. The creature (Tim Dry) moves to a cottage nearby and attacks a woman (Susie Silvey), leaving her pregnant. When she returns to consciousness, she gives birth to a full-formed Sam and dies. Sam steals Ben's clothes and drives his car, without bothering to get rid of Jane's corpse, which will be found by a lorry-driver (David Cardy)

Sam seeks Tony, who lives in a condominium building in London, with his mother (Bernice Stegers), her new boyfriend Joe Daniels (Danny Brainin), and a French au-pair Analise Mercier (Mariam d'Abo). Rachel and Joe are professional photographers and share a studio downtown. Many nights, Tony has got nightmares. He wakes up soaked in blood, but it's not his, as the family doctor (Robert Fyfe) discovers. Sam picks Tony up from school, until Rachel finds them. Although Joe doesn't like it -he intends to marry Rachel- Sam goes to live with them, saying he can't remember anything. Tony sees him eating his pet snake's eggs and runs from him. Sam goes after him, talking to him smoothly, and drinks his blood.

Rachel finds Jane's photo in Sam's clothes, but he can't remember her either. Tony discovers he has certain powers now, so he sends a human-size soldier toy (Sean Crawford) to kill their nasty neighbour Mrs Goodman (Anna Wing), in revenge for killing his pet snake. Also, a teddy-clown becomes a human-like clown (Peter Mandell)

Sam and Rachel both decide to visit their former residence, the farm, while leaving Tony at Analise's regard. However, she brings Esteban, her boyfriend, and they make love. Tony demands to play hide-and-see with her. She does so, only to be used as a kind of womb for the alien eggs by Tony and the clown. Tony sends a toy to kill Esteban. He discovers Analise and runs away, but a puma kills him. The building-keeper is also killed when Rachel asks him to watch Tony, as nobody answers the phone at home.

Sam and Rachel make love in the abandoned farm (which is a tidy as when they used to live there!), but she gets afraid because his skin starts to bleed and decompose. Joe has taken Tony there. Sam and Tony go up a hill towards the alien light. Sam has become a disguisting skeleton, but shouts and kills Joe. Tony's skin is also decomposing, but not so much. Rachel goes back to the flat on her own, only to be attacked by the clown and panther.

Alternate Ending

Director Harry Bromley Davenport originally intended the film to end with Rachel coming home to find the apartment filled with clones of Tony, having apparently come from the alien eggs which the real Tony had been left in the refrigerator. But executive producer Robert Shaye, not thinking the scenes special effects were convincing enough, edited it out and released it for its New York debut with the film ending when Rachel sits down in the field after Sam and Tony have left. Davenport, however, not wanting to have it end on such an abrupt note, created another one which had Rachel going back to the apartment, picking up one of the eggs and being attacked by a face-grabbing creature similar to the one that attacked the woman in the cottage, and ultimately the film was released with this ending.

Cast

• Maryam d'Abo as Analise Mercier
• Philip Sayer as Sam Phillips
• Bernice Stegers as Rachel Phillips
• Simon Nash as Tony Phillips
• Peter Mandell as Clown
• David Cardy as Michael
• Anna Wing as Mrs. Goodman
• Susie Silvey as Woman In Cottage
• Katherine Best as Jane

Release

The film was released theatrically in the United States by New Line Cinema in 1983.

Xtro was briefly vilified as a video nasty, especially due to a particularly graphic scene early in film wherein a woman gives birth to a fully grown man. However, it was granted an uncut video certificate by the BBFC shortly after its successful cinema run.

The film was released on DVD three times in the United States by Image Entertainment. The first DVD of the film was released in 2005 as a double feature with sequel Xtro II: The Second Encounter. The second DVD was released in 2006 as a standalone release. The third DVD was released in 2007 and was a triple feature alongside Xtro II: The Second Encounter and Skeeter.

In Britain the entire Xtro trilogy was released in box-set, remastered anamorphic widescreen with 5.1 for Xtro II and an interview with director Harry Bromley Davenport covering the production of all three films.

Sequels

Director Harry Bromley Davenport made two sequels to the film, Xtro II: The Second Encounter and Xtro 3: Watch the Skies. Niether films had anything to do with the original film.In March 2010, Davenport confirmed that Xtro 4 was in the works. Speaking to Fangoria.com, he stated:

“I am going to be starting XTRO 4 this summer; you are the first to receive this shattering news,” Davenport tells us. “A script by Daryl Haney is in the works, and my sales guys are salivating. It’s going to be a very odd movie indeed. Sort of back to the roots of the first one, but much stranger and, hopefully, more uncomfortable.”

External links

• Xtro at the Internet Movie Database
• Xtro at AllRovi