Best. Toychest. Ever.

What you will find in XTRO:

• One feisty midget clown
• A killer toy tank
• Alien birth
• One life-sized GI Joe (or a similar brand found on your local Family Dollar shelf)

• Panthers
• Lasers
• A man shedding his skin during his first sex in three years
• The implication that a seven-year-old boy has impregnated Maryam d’Abo
• The implication that said seven-year-old boy is very fertile

How did it take me 28 years to catch this one? As MY CONTEST (enter!)  proves, my viewing history has more holes in it than a sexy mesh t-shirt.

Quick Plot: A routine game of fetch turns tragic when young Tony’s dad Sam gets, it would seem, abducted by extraterrestrial light show enthusiasts. Fast forward three years when mom Rachel has moved on to engagement with an American photographer while young Tony clings to the hope that pops is just a planet or two away.

And by the serendipitous impregnation of a random young blond, he is. Following an impressively gory birthing scene, Sam emerges to chew off his own umbilical cord and reunite with his hesitant family, now joined by slutty French au paire Mayram D’Abo. Though Tony is ecstatic to show his pet snake off to Daddy (literally), others--including a nosy neighbor marked for immediate death--are a tad more suspicious.

XTRO is a minor cult classic, a low budget video nasty that spawned two sequels. While its bizarro gross-out reputation is well earned by the weirdness of its elements (which do indeed include unexplained animated toy henchmen), for much of its first and second act, XTRO is surprisingly disciplined in building its characters and developing their conflicts. Left alone for three years, Bernice Stegers’s Rachel is sympathetic and believably torn between her new fiancee and the mysterious father of her child. Though director Harry Bromley Davenport seemed to think little about the logic of his story (based on the extras), the human relationships are quite solid. Even Danny Brainin as The Other Man that should come across as the minor villain feels like a real guy just trying to improve the family he’s supposed to inherit.

But nobody rents XTRO for a Brady Bunch-like lesson in blending families. You want oddball imagery and gooey practical effects, and both get gleefully popping as Sam and Tony bond the way all fathers and sons are meant to: sucking blood and reproducing via  cocooning the hot young nanny and hooking her up to a complex tubing system for egg laying. Now THAT’s how you talk birds and bees.

High Points

Am I ever going to complain about evil clown midgets?

Though a lot of the alien-like lighting feels a tad too ‘80s, most of the practical effects are gruesomely exciting and quite well done

Low Points

Part of this is the nature of XTRO’s storytelling style, but due to the tale, it’s hard to know exactly who we should be rooting for

Lessons Learned

Think British. Look Yiddish

As you would expect, life is pretty sweet when a midget clown does all your dirty work

In order to attract a passing race of aliens, be sure to look good in a sweater while throwing sticks high in the air. Certain species appreciate those kinds of skills

Rent/Bury/Buy

Any genre film fan--particularly those with sci-fi leanings--should definitely check out this film. The DVD includes an interesting alternate ending (don’t worry; the panther remains prominent) and a fantastically amusing, possibly drunken conversation with verbose and self-deprecating (also, apparently Jan-Michael Vincent hating) director Davenport. Though I don’t expect to rewatch this film any time soon (there’s not quite enough humor or scare factor to warrant instant classic status, at least upon first viewing) I’m putting the sequels on my radar and look forward to seeing how the series develops and if we ever actually find out what the heck XTRO as a word means. Like Detective Mike Norris from Child’s Play, I just hate loose ends.