Harry Bromley Davenport’s belated, in-name-only follow up to his early 80s SF/horror effort Xtro (1982) is a confusing and infuriating affair that has nothing whatsoever to do with the flawed but enjoyable original. The plot is predictability incarnate, little more than The Terminator by way of Aliens as all and sundry tool up and kick ass as only characters in low budget direct-to-video misfires know how.
It’s a pity to see Davenport prostituting his talents in this way; though no Argento or Carpenter, his previous work had hinted at a passable, workmanlike talent waiting to be developed. Xtro II is evidence of a mere lookalike stylist who seemed destined to vanish into the depths of direct-to-video obscurity. Even Fred Olen Ray, in all his cut-price ineptness, has more of a recognisable style than Davenport shows here. Clearly the film was intended not as a sequel to Xtro (to which it bears no resemblance whatsoever, be it in visual style, narrative or even intent) but as an opportunity to raid the images and ideas that have crowded popular action cinema over the previous few years. The film happened only because Bromley Davenport had found that he retained the rights to the word Xtro but none of the story, characters or look of the first film and when Canadian finance came a-calling it seemed to good an opportunity to pass up.
After a very short time, and an awful lot of skulking around in the dark watching knuckleheads firing off big machine guns and talking tough simply, it all becomes stultifying and the finger begins to itch for the fast forward button. Cliche piles upon cliche as the plot deteriorates into a mindless melange of seen-it-all-before set pieces designed to trigger some sort of response from an undemanding audience. It’s not even particularly well done, Davenport showing no sign at all that he’s learnt anything since he made Xtro. Indeed, his direction is truly eccentric, taking in ultra fast edits, far too many computer displays and weird close-ups and fast panning shots that add nothing whatsoever to the unfolding of the torturous plot.
No reference is ever made to the original film, though there are plentiful references to an unexplained event that took place in Texas prior to the film’s opening. No aliens appear and the trans-dimensional monstrosity that threatens our rag-tag band of protagonists bears no resemblance whatsoever to either of the creatures seen in Xtro, but does have more than a passing family likeness to those in the Alien films. A sad waste of film stock, time and money.
The EOFFTV Review 