Hellbilly
08-24-2003, 06:48 PM
Harry Bromley-Davenport's bizarre but unique sci-fi horror fave finally made it to DVD, but only in Germany.
Time to rejoice? Let's see ...
Story: A man gets abducted by aliens and returns home three years later in a spaceship. He left earth as a human but now he's transformed into some kind of freaky alien who kills people with his extended tongue and impregnates a woman to get reborn again as a human. He came back for one reason though, to collect his son and travel back into space - but that doesn't seem to be an easy task. He has to deal with his wife who questions him about his disappearance plus her new lover turns out to be a suspicious pain in the ass as well. Training (and manipulating) his son for the trip is an easy one though, especially after giving him a weird alien-kiss on his shoulder ... Before Father & Son head off into space and leaving Mommy a little surprise behind they give life to war toys for deadly missions, eat snake eggs for lunch and do very naughty things to their supersexy french live-in Nanny ...
Haven't seen this film in ages I instantly bought the disc on first sight. Hell yeah, Xtro is still a fun movie. Kinda creepy the way they made the alien move. It's a simple trick but very effective.
Xtro will be most remembered for it's infamous birth sequence and Maryam D'Abo's kinky nude scenes.
http://www.xjuggler.de/bilder/smither1057169954.jpg
Soooooo this is a 2 disc set including 3 (!) versions of Xtro. Pop in disc 1 and ya get:
The extended version with the UK & US video ending.
This version runs 86 min 19 sec and they included about 3 minutes of never-before-seen footage that was probably trimmed for pacing I assume. Nothing really revealing here, just a few dialogue snippets actually but beware: the new inserted footage is in German language only and there ain't any English subtitles (or any subtitles at all for that matter).
According to Marketing there wasn't a English spoken master with those scenes available.
Pop in disc 2 and you get to choose between the Theatrical Version or the UK & US video version. Theatrical version runs 82 min 31 sec and has a "happy" ending which shows Mom being welcomed by clones of her son after returning to her flat. The UK & US video version (83 min 01 sec) is slightly "recut" (nothing missing though) and has the "bloody" ending with the hand popping out of an egg killing mommy.
Video: All three versions are presented in full screen and the transfer(s) ain't very great. Apparently there isn't a pristine master availabe (again according to Marketing) so all ya get is VHS quality. Image is soft and dirty at times, there's a bit color bleeding and some scenes are very dark. I've noticed some edge enhancement and at least one video-like drop out.
Audio: English 2.0 mono. It's ok but the music parts are kinda loud at times.
Extras: The usual Marketing fare - Teaser trailer, bio's & info's, Artwork galleries, slideshows and the alternate endings on disc 1.
Disc 2 has info's (German only) about the various versions & endings.
Since this is a New Line production there might be hope a R1 DVD surfaces in the near future (with a 16:9 transfer) ... until then this R2 set is good enough to tide you over.
Time to rejoice? Let's see ...
Story: A man gets abducted by aliens and returns home three years later in a spaceship. He left earth as a human but now he's transformed into some kind of freaky alien who kills people with his extended tongue and impregnates a woman to get reborn again as a human. He came back for one reason though, to collect his son and travel back into space - but that doesn't seem to be an easy task. He has to deal with his wife who questions him about his disappearance plus her new lover turns out to be a suspicious pain in the ass as well. Training (and manipulating) his son for the trip is an easy one though, especially after giving him a weird alien-kiss on his shoulder ... Before Father & Son head off into space and leaving Mommy a little surprise behind they give life to war toys for deadly missions, eat snake eggs for lunch and do very naughty things to their supersexy french live-in Nanny ...
Haven't seen this film in ages I instantly bought the disc on first sight. Hell yeah, Xtro is still a fun movie. Kinda creepy the way they made the alien move. It's a simple trick but very effective.
Xtro will be most remembered for it's infamous birth sequence and Maryam D'Abo's kinky nude scenes.
http://www.xjuggler.de/bilder/smither1057169954.jpg
Soooooo this is a 2 disc set including 3 (!) versions of Xtro. Pop in disc 1 and ya get:
The extended version with the UK & US video ending.
This version runs 86 min 19 sec and they included about 3 minutes of never-before-seen footage that was probably trimmed for pacing I assume. Nothing really revealing here, just a few dialogue snippets actually but beware: the new inserted footage is in German language only and there ain't any English subtitles (or any subtitles at all for that matter).
According to Marketing there wasn't a English spoken master with those scenes available.
Pop in disc 2 and you get to choose between the Theatrical Version or the UK & US video version. Theatrical version runs 82 min 31 sec and has a "happy" ending which shows Mom being welcomed by clones of her son after returning to her flat. The UK & US video version (83 min 01 sec) is slightly "recut" (nothing missing though) and has the "bloody" ending with the hand popping out of an egg killing mommy.
Video: All three versions are presented in full screen and the transfer(s) ain't very great. Apparently there isn't a pristine master availabe (again according to Marketing) so all ya get is VHS quality. Image is soft and dirty at times, there's a bit color bleeding and some scenes are very dark. I've noticed some edge enhancement and at least one video-like drop out.
Audio: English 2.0 mono. It's ok but the music parts are kinda loud at times.
Extras: The usual Marketing fare - Teaser trailer, bio's & info's, Artwork galleries, slideshows and the alternate endings on disc 1.
Disc 2 has info's (German only) about the various versions & endings.
Since this is a New Line production there might be hope a R1 DVD surfaces in the near future (with a 16:9 transfer) ... until then this R2 set is good enough to tide you over.