Xtro

04 May, 2025

More notoriously a UK video shop stalwart than a film of any real note, Xtro is a remarkable study in complete and total bollocks and the kind of film where reading the Wikipedia summary and never watching the thing is the better option. For a start, it’s funnier. For another thing, it’ll save me discussing anything the film is in detail.

Every time it’s been long enough for me to forget how much I find it a horror of a watch - like tonight - I find myself reliving the experience all over again and come out of it thinking “why did I do that?” and “will I never learn?”. It’s one of a very small handful of films that try as a I might to find something nice to say about it, I’m going to really struggle because oh my sweet baby Molyneux, Xtro is edgy with a capital EDGY and I just can’t.

I find with films that are clearly setting out to be shocking in some fashion, there’s kind of a point somewhere (and it entirely depends on the film where) where it can cross a line from “oof, that’s gross” into “this is pathetic” and Xtro, at least for me, crosses that line fairly early on and because it sustains the edgy throughout, never recovers. In parts it’s a style thing and Xtro has none. In parts it’s stressing the underlying ridiculousness of the setup and going right on ahead anyway and Xtro is too workmanlike, too fixated on being uninspired in its weirdness, to stay on the right side of the line. It’s “did you see what I did there?”, the movie.

For want of a typical tatwatch comparison, it’s the Night Train Murders to Last House On The Left. Reliant on a depressingly cynical grime to pull it through instead of dragging the viewer into a madness. And you know, I can see why some people might go for that but it’s not my bag. This just feels like a bunch of not-shocking shock scenes, checklisted and selotaped together and well, it seems strange given the nature of Tatwatch to stress this but with a cheapness and cynicism that does not appeal to me.

So I’m making a note here to remind myself, next time I want to watch Xtro, skip that step. It is not my kind of tat, never has been, never will be and there are easier ways of depressing myself without inflicting its tedium on myself.

On a plus note, it has a great noodly synth score that’s reminiscent of early eighties Who so it’s not a complete disaster, just most of one. I could probably just go and watch some Who instead in future too, save myself some bother.

A rare Tatwatch big nope of a film that’s only really getting an entry in the vague hopes that future me might pay attention to past me for once. As ever, your own mileage may vary.