Extro II - O Reencontro

The original Xtro was a British sci-fi horror film from the early 80's. It was very silly indeed but pretty original and strange. I guess you could describe it as a minor cult movie. Its director, Harry Davenport, returned almost a decade later to make an American sequel called, perhaps unsurprisingly, Xtro II. This one is only vaguely related to the previous film at best. It's set in an underground military laboratory that is experimenting with travelling to other dimensions. They send a swat team to one such place, it's disastrous and one of the team returns only for an aggressive alien to burst out of her stomach and escape into the facility. The remaining personnel must avoid being torn apart by the monster.

It should be clear from the synopsis that this flick owes a fair bit to Alien. But the truth is that this one isn't even nearly as good as the uneven original Xtro, far less Ridley Scott's master-work. Probably the single biggest problem is the location. Almost all films set in confined military bases are usually tedious and terrible. The limited sets are good for a low budget but very boring. This one is no exception with lots of dark corridors and very little variety. The movie stars Jan-Michael 'Airwolf' Vincent. He's not very good and puts in a thoroughly disinterested performance.

Overall, very forgettable.

I saw this movie for the first time when I was a young teenager, and I actually liked it. I honestly couldn't tell that the acting was bad, the suspense was absent, the plot was non-existent. So, is it then safe to say that this movie probably was made by young teenagers, unaware of the different aspects that make a good sci-fi/horror movie work? I had the chance to re-watch it last night, so I did. Better had not done it, because it's another childhood memory shattered.

This movie indeed is a shameless ALIEN rip-off. There's a chest-burster-scene, there's a BIG gun attached to a soldier's body like in ALIENS, there are soldiers crawling through air-shafts with somebody looking at a monitor telling them the creature's closing in on them,...

It's a shame, really, because the 'other dimension'-concept had potential. The film-makers should have shown more of it. Like the soldiers scouting the landscape or them entering the dome you see in the distance. Actually, you don't see sh!t. Just some fuzzy transmitted images on a monitor. I guess they didn't have the budget to write all that in the screenplay, since they clearly used only three sets or so.

I'm still trying to figure out why I liked this movie back then. I think because there's some mild gore in it (chest- & face-bursting and an exploding dude at the end), but they cut away from it too quickly. So it must have been the creature, which looks reasonable (but still rubbery) and fairly dangerous when it shows its teeth, but it moves way too slow.

Anyway, I'm waisting too much words on this crappy movie. The important thing is: XTRO II: The Second Encounter is actually no sequel to XTRO (1983). The two movies have absolutely NOTHING in common. I even think the first XTRO is worth tracking down and watching it, 'cause it's a peculiar and unique little sci-fi/horror-gem. XTRO II is not. But if you want to see every possible ALIEN rip-off: Be my guest.

Xtro, the original movie, was a British production involving an abducted father who comes back for his son, transforming him into an alien like himself and raising Hell for his ex-wife and friends.

This movie has nothing even resembling anything like that, with the exception of the director.

It is a bad sign when a movie sequel manages to forget some of what happened in the previous movie. It is a terrible sign when it completely ignores every thing like the plot, characters, situations, et al.

Even worse is when you hire Jan Michael Vincent at the height of his addiction phase, when he was on the verge of getting bounced from Airwolf for his drunken antics. His underwhelming presence in this film is a great display of the depths he had sunken to already.

After all the bad reviews I read of this movie, I was dreading watching it. But it actually exceeded my expectations!! It's really fun! Don't listen to all the negative reviews. This was actually a very suspenseful, entertaining, low-budget SCI FI movie! Yes, there are some Alien elements in it of course, but I think the actors performances were really very good. Tara Buckman is fantastic as a "Linda Hamilton" type heroine. I really enjoyed her performance - she definitely leads the movie, and I have to say she's got wickedly cool hair too! She was a knockout in a Buck Rogers episode ('Unchained Woman') from the 70's. I was worried that Jan Michael Vincent would be alcohol-deadened, but he actually turns in an admirable performance as well! I know he's older, but some of that 80's 'action star' persona comes through really nicely, and he still has amazing charisma in front of the camera. It's also a treat to see a young Nicolas Lea (from the X Files) in this - battling aliens, no less! The alien itself is pretty interesting - nothing as scary as 'Aliens', but it's pretty cool special effects. Enjoy this movie- it's fun!!!!

A watchable yet highly derivative work with a good-bad ratio that about balances the scales.

There's absolutely no point in bellyaching about its sequel-ship as proceeding Xtro from ten years prior because it is public record that a sequel couldn't be made unless it was in name only due to legal issues. I for one had enough of Xtro the first time around so it's no tragedy to me that this film had nothing to do with it.

Unlike its predecessor this film can't be mined for archetypal meaning. It is devoid of any depth, if I do say so myself.

Forget about Alien; Xtro 2 is a poor man's remake of "Metamorphosis: The Alien Factor" from 1990; another sequel that had nothing to do with its weird and disgusting older sibling.

But of course we can't forget about the impact of Alien on this film. The shots of the parallel dimension are almost identical (at a glance) to what we see on the monitors in front of an electrified Ash as Dallas, Lambert and Kane explore LV24. Then we have the entrance of the monster (I like the unzipping effect in Xtro 2, though).

Aesthetically this film is like a graphic novel set in the dark. It's quite impressive how they managed to get so much black in the background that all we see for the most part are the cast, creature, and the artefact of interest (a ripped grate, for example). I also appreciated that Jedburg was there at the bottom of the elevator shaft, as he should have been.

As I said: watchable, highly derivative, decent monster, aesthetically minimalist. A cultural summation rather than contribution. You know what you're getting.