WTF Britain?!?: Xtro

I've covered the television shows of England (with plenty more to come) so far, I decided to take a stab at one of their films. If you have ever wondered what an American film would look like filtered through the U.K., check out...

Xtro

The film starts out strong enough with a kid playing catch with his dad and dog. in the countryside. Out of nowhere, an alien space ship shows up and it turns into night. In a scene eerily similar to that in Twister, the dad is pulled away. Have fun growing up, kid.

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Three years later, the mom has moved on, is engaged to another man and the kid is a little weird. Meanwhile, a couple is out for a late night ride when a meteorite crashes, A weird alien emerges and it walks like the 'spider-girl' from The Exorcist. It kills them both and proceeds to kill a lonely house woman. In one of the movie's first infamous gore scenes, our missing dad emerges hole from the woman's...uh, hole. Despite all the gore, it is still less creepy than the rhino scene from Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls. Naturally, he goes back to check on the family.

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The whole thing is a bit awkward to be honest. Mom still likes him, but insists against this when her fiancee questions her about it. He moves back into the house and the kid is happy. Dad is quite weird though, choosing to eat a snake's eggs instead of...well, the weird crap that British people eat. He converts his kid into an alien the Dracula way and things just get freaking weird. I'll sum it up for you...

-The kid gets powers and decides to screw with reality.
-His toy clown becomes an evil midget with a knife.
-His G.I. Jack doll grows full-size and kills their neighbor for the crime of killing his snake.
-His slutty babysitter is killed and placed in a cocoon for some reason.

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If you can make sense of anything after or around this point, then you are a better man than I. Something happens out on the farm, the new boyfriend tries to make sense of all of this and the father-son duo transform into aliens. Also, somewhere in all of this, a black panther appears. Just go with it, people. If you question this, then you are just...a sane person. Me, I'm a guy who watches films about mutant rats in the future.

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I enjoyed it, even if I still don't get it. If nothing else, watch the interview with the director and the alternate endings. You will see that even he finds the movie- and the sequels (upcoming reviews for sure)- stupid and illogical. Who am I to disagree?

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You want more bi-polar cinema? How dare you! I'm sad now. Stay tuned...