Xtro Movie Review

English chap abducted by aliens years before returns to his family as a fast-metamorphosizing mutant “bearing black magic from outer space,” as the original ads helpfully explained a pointless subplot about the man's nasty little son doing the Carrie routine with telekinesis. Emphasis on slime, sex, disease, and splatter, much of it inventively nightmarish, most of it offensive – like a raped woman gestating in a matter of minutes and giving birth to a full-grown man. By way of contrast, the same British producer did 1977's The Glitter-ball (available on video in the U.K.), a children's feature that strongly prefigured Steven Spielberg's E.T.

1983 (R) 80m/C GB Philip Sayer, Bernice Stegers, Danny Brainin, Simon Nash, Maryam D'Abo, David Cardy, Anna Wing, Peter Mandell, Robert Fyfe; D: Harry Bromley Davenport; W: Iain Cassle, Robert Smith; C: John Metcalfe. VHS, Beta, LV NLC