Xtro (1982)

Director Harry Bromley Davenport doesn’t much rate his British horror. He called it, “An extraordinary mess . . . It’s rubbish”.

He may have a point.

Featuring such delights as a woman giving birth to a full-grown man and a six-foot Action Man bayonetting EastEnders‘ Lou Beale, it’s just shameless exploitation.

You certainly can’t accuse Xtro of predictability, though. Stirring together alien abduction, monster horror, telekinesis shocker and domestic drama, it sees a father abducted by aliens returning home to his family years later, strangely altered (he’s now a four-legged crablike monster).

He assaults a gorgeous blonde and the next day explodes from her womb, a fully-grown human, later returning home to his wife to battle for custody of their son.

Endlessly protean, it’s constantly wrong-footing you. At its oddest, it achieves the same pop-surrealism as a film like Phantasm (1978), and committed performances by Philip Sayer as the dad and Bernice Stegers as his bewildered missus mean that, for a moment, it might even move you.

Maryam d’Abo appears in her movie debut.

Is it rubbish? Oh yes, it is.

Is it extraordinary? Yes, that, too.

Sam Phillips
Philip Sayer
Rachel Phillips
Bernice Stegers
Joe Daniels
Danny Brainin
Analise Mercier
Maryam d’Abo
Tony Phillips
Simon Nash
Clown
Peter Mandell
Michael
David Cardy
Mrs Goodman
Anna Wing
Doctor
Robert Fyfe
Jane
Katherine Best
Ben
Robert Pereno
Commando
Sean Crawford (as Tok)
Monster
Tim Dry (as Tik)
Woman in Cottage
Susie Silvey
Mr Knight
Arthur Whybrow
Teacher
Anna Mottram
Van Driver
Robert Austin
Paula Phillips
Vanya Seager

Director
Harry Bromley Davenport

Video