13 Nights of Hallowe'en 2009: Night #8 Xtro

This is likely the first real horror movie that I ever saw. I mean that wasn't on TV during the day. I don't remember seeing any at night by then. However I don't clearly remember any of the movies I must have seen during the day on weekends. When I first saw Xtro the format was videodiscs. They were before real laser discs, and before VHS, though Betamax had come on the scene and the store was renting a few of those too. For me Xtro is an infamous movie. I wasn't the only one my age to see it, but really, that said, we were all too young. I remember wanting to see Halloween 3 but being denied by my parents so a scary movie masquerading as science fiction was a good choice. That they never saw the nudity or gore was a small miracle given the number of times I watched it.

As much as I'm against spoilers, sometimes if a scene is early enough in the film I will let things slip. Xtro contains one of these things you need to let slip so that people will know just what kind of movie it is. For Xtro that scene is where a woman is attacked by an alien and within minutes violently gives birth to a full-grown man. To this day the movie still remains one of my favourites. It took what seemed like forever for it come out on DVD, finally doing so in 2005--at least in North America. Xtro was of course one of the British video nasties, though this time actually from Britain. Despite its origins the film bore credit screens with the old New Line Cinema logo and was one of the Smart Egg pictures; a pair of company names that stood for horror even before New Line hit it super huge.

Mood: fine.

Music: Distant Skies by Stratovarius off of Fourth Dimension.