Xtro (1982)

“The whole thing was very odd because I never really thought much of the film in the first place and didn’t think I did a good job. The film should have been much better, should have been more frightening.

It has astonished me that every few years it will be rereleased on DVD or whatever the hell it happens to be. I would go in these bloody video shops and the first thing you do is look for your own film – and there it would be, the dreaded Xtro, sitting on the shelf. I’d have to go down to the bottom shelf as it was in the Xs.

It has seriously astonished me. I’ve come around to it over the last few months because I’ve had to see it again and because I’ve had to talk to people about it. I do see now that there is a sort of odd atmosphere about it, and I don’t quite know what that atmosphere is – it’s probably an atmosphere of complete moronity and incapability, stupidity – but there is something odd.

It’s like a lovely film called Phantasm – that made no sense, and it was kind of boring too, because people all walked very slowly. It had this wonderful metal ball effect that would fly around everywhere hitting people in the head then it would cut to some man standing there and he would walk across the room and disappear in a mirror gag. It had an atmosphere, it held its own – it was absolute nonsense but it did hold its own – and I never thought that Xtro had that. I always thought it was kind of clumsy.

I did the restoration on it. I said, “If you’re going to put this out on Blu-ray, I don’t want it going out in the condition it is in.” The print I saw that they were going to use to make it was terrible, it was unbelievable – all the colours were washed out.

And yes it does astonish me, because I don’t think I did a good job. It was the first time I had worked with a full union crew, and that was a little intimidating, although they were very nice people. We worked from nine to five; there were no independent hours in those days. On an independent film you do ten hours a day at least – and you don’t ask if you can do overtime. You just do it, it’s in the deal, and they know they’ll get a bump or a free lunch at Denny’s. On this it was a bit intimidating – you had to plead, “Can I please shoot till six o’clock?” “Well, I don’t know, we’ll have to have a shops stewards meeting about it.” [muttered expletives about that idea]

And there were executives as well, who were also very nice people. From time to time I was taken into the rubber room and beaten with rubber mallets and things because I was over time, over budget. I remember the first time I was over schedule, Mark Forstater – smashing fellow who produced the film, and produced Monty Python and the Holy Grail – came to me and said “We’re a day behind” and I realised on an eight week shoot [what that meant]. I remember being taken out to dinner a couple of times, particularly with Bob Shaye at New Line, who tore me to pieces in front of all these people – he said, “It’s shit. I can sell shit but I need T’n’A with that girl, Maryam.” He was suffering from terrible jet lag at the time and apologised later – he’s another of these rather loveable rogues.”

[6] “Xtro: Interview: Harry Bromley-Davenport” Scifi Bulletin https://scifibulletin.com/film-reviews/film-interviews/xtro-interview-harry-bromley-davenport/

“His victim’s accelerated pregnancy, bracketed as it is by the rape and death which make her completely ‘safe’, minimises the indispensable role of the female in the gesta tion, birth and rearing of the child.

Consequently, the sequence represents a patriarchal fantasy in which the symbolic order is preserved unchallenged whilst the contribution made to that order by the nurturing mother is diminished to non-existence.
From this scene, it appears that a genuine contempt for the nurturing role of the mother infects the film. However, Xtro’s central project is social criticism; it is a polemic for the patriarchal family order, produced when that order was in jeopardy. To enunciate its argument, Xtro is structured as an asymmetric interplanetary custody battle between Sam and Rachel for Tony. Following his rebirth, the film charts Sam’s troubled return to the family and his recruitment of Tony, Tony’s transformation of Analise into an alien egg-producing cocoon, and the permanent reunion of father and son. In the penultimate moments, Rachel watches Sam, now in alien form, take Tony’s half-human, half-Xtro hand, and lead him aboard a spaceship. She then returns home to discover Analise’s eggs. As she examines one, a testicular-phallic larva erupts to pene- trate her mouth and leave her bleeding on the floor.

His victim’s accelerated pregnancy, bracketed as it is by the rape and death which make her completely ‘safe’, minimises the indispensable role of the female in the gesta- tion, birth and rearing of the child. Consequently, the sequence represents a patriarchal fantasy in which the symbolic order is preserved unchallenged whilst the contribution made to that order by the nurturing mother is dimin- ished to non-existence.
From this scene, it appears that a genuine contempt for the nurturing role of the mother infects the film. However, Xtro’s central project is social criticism; it is a polemic for the patriarchal family order, produced when that order was in jeopardy. To enunciate its argument, Xtro is structured as an asymmetric interplanetary custody battle between Sam and Rachel for Tony. Following his rebirth, the film charts Sam’s troubled return to the family and his recruitment of Tony, Tony’s transformation of Analise into an alien egg-producing cocoon, and the permanent reunion of father and son. In the penultimate moments, Rachel watches Sam, now in alien form, take Tony’s half-human, half-Xtro hand, and lead him aboard a spaceship. She then returns home to discover Analise’s eggs. As she examines one, a testicular-phallic larva erupts to pene- trate her mouth and leave her bleeding on the floor.”

[4] “The British post-Alien intrusion film”, P. Wright – British Science Fiction Cinema, 2002

“Along with the Italian films Alien 2 sulla Terra (1980, Ciro Ippolito) and Contamination (1980, Luigi Cozzi), these Aliensploitation films include two Roger Corman produced U.S. films Galaxy of Terror and Forbidden World (1982, Allan Holzman) as well as Titan Find (1985, William Malone). All of them have had and continue to have intriguing “social lives” as exploitation films. Their individual “cul- tural biographies” extend from pre-Internet circulation as theatrical and VHS versions, with cultivation of their awareness through genre media ranging from American and British prozines such as Fangoria and Star- burst to cult horror fanzines. And their post-millennial re-discovery/ re-commercialization has involved more aftermarket curation with feature- laden DVD releases and appraisal as artifacts of 1980s horror video culture, with Contamination, Inseminoid and XTRO as “bit players” in British media history involving moral panics (of the three only Contamination was officially included on the Director of Public Prosecution’s infamous list of “video nas- ties” for public prosecution under the United Kingdom’s 1959 Obscene Pub- lications Act).”

[5] “Galaxies of Terror in a Knock-Off Universe.” J DAVIS – Horror in Space: Critical Essays on a Film Subgenre, 2017 https://books.google.com/books?id=wNg5DwAAQBAJ&lpg=PA194&ots=Rylp6aoPgq&dq=xtro%201982&lr&pg=PA195#v=onepage&q=xtro%201982&f=false