Xtro 2: The Second Encounter (1991)

Just perfect...

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Harry Bromley-Davenport returns with his first sequel to XTRO. But, it has nothing to do with the original and plays out with a completely different style than the 1983 gore show. Within an underground lab people have been sent to a parallel universe, can not return and they have only 12 hours of oxygen left. They turn to Dr. Shepard (Jan Michael-Vincent) who was the brains behind the original project and had been sent to this parallel universe before and survived. Sadly, just plays out as another Alien rip-off, which is too bad because it did seem to have some potential early on.

This film is titled "Xtro II: The Second Encounter"; however, is not a sequel to the first film in any way. We go from a father abducted by aliens who returns to impart horrifying powers to his son to a film that rips off the film Aliens and the lesser Corman film, "The Terror Within" as it involves a monster moving around air ducts and picking off victims. The first film was not great, but it was different to say the least. This one is nothing that has not been done numerous times and it does not do it as well. I mean, "The Terror Within" was not a great film, but it did better with the formula of monster on the loose in a facility than this one did.The story has an experiment about to take place as a group of scientist or something or other is about to traverse into another dimension! Well, something happens and so the two scientists who are working on the project and apparently hate each other have different ideas on how to rescue them. One wants to send in troops to this other dimension where nobody seems to return alive and rescue the team that got sent off, the other wants to bring in her boyfriend who did make it back, but would rather not tell anyone that there are horrible monsters in the other dimension. Soon a monster is on the loose, the doctor who despises everyone is infected and everyone is locked in. And for reasons unknown everyone in this film hates the walls in this facility because despite the monster being huge and right in front of them they always have to expend a ton of ammo on the walls before hitting the beastie.This film just has too many failings to be be entertaining, even in a bad way. The monster looks okay, kind of a combination of a Xenomorph form the Alien franchise and that thing that showed up at midnight in the horror film, "House". Unfortunately, you will not get to see much of it as there is just way too much build up in this film. Meanwhile, in the also low budgeted, "Terror Within" the monster is on display a lot more. Speaking of that film, in it they got George Kennedy to play a role and he looks bored and uninterested. That being said, he is understandable and though you can tell he does not want to be there, he goes about it in a professional manner. Here we get Jan-Michael Vincent and he not only seems like he does not wish to be in the film, he also seems to be drunk! He slurs and at times it is hard to understand what he is saying. Feel bad for him as his star looked so bright and then he kind of fell hard, but they would have been better picking an unknown.So, the film has nothing to do with the first film and the third film would have nothing to do with either film. The only thing the films share in common is the name Xtro with the first film being the most original of the bunch. This one is an Alien ripoff and the third film is like Predator had they replaced the cool looking Predator with a gray and did not have a budget to higher a bunch of cool action stars. This one might of worked better if they just had some cool more elaborate deaths and not had a guy who was drunk during the film. More monster action and more fodder for the monster to kill. Kind of a joke at the end how the creature was dispatched and then the only odd moment in the film as a woman appears says some stuff and then they fade to the credits. Strangely, the film almost plays like it is a sequel, but not to the first Xtro, but rather one where Jan-Michael's character entered the other dimension and had an elaborate adventure.

Oh, dear, where do I begin? Okay, maybe I'll start at the start. And by that I mean the first Xtro movie - a mad, crazy, bizarre alien-busting British film from the eighties. One that has stood the tests of time simply due to its sheer weirdness. It found a cult following, so I guess that's why it spawned a sequel.However, Xtro 2 has nothing to do with the original and is merely attempting to cash in on the name. What it is, is an absolute Alien/Aliens rip-off. Here we go...Poor man's Colonial Marines with cigar-chomping Sergeant - check (not that this lot look like they're from the military, as they appear to have little to no military training). Chestburster alien - check. Air ducts - check. Alien itself - check. Map scene where the characters try to barricade up the complex - check. Ripley clone - check. 'Smart guns' - check. Female voice doing a countdown until destruction - check. And so on.Pity really, as it started with a decent enough premise - scientists in a top secret government lab are trying to send explorers through to another dimension. Trouble is, they bring back a particularly nasty alien who then runs amok.Not only is this film made by - seemingly - the only people alive who have seriously don't believe this has anything to do with Aliens, but the sets are cheap and the acting is terrible (if you look at the trivia for this movie you will find that even the director didn't like the leading man who didn't bother to learn his lines and had to have them all given to him prior to every shot). They even go for the classic horror movie cliché 'have sex and die.' Then it all turns pretty standard with the alien picking the humans off one by one (courteously ignoring major characters in favour of the lesser ones).Bottom line: if you like alien films, watch Alien or Aliens. The only thing Xtro 2 is good for is using as a drinking game where every time they copy Aliens, you have another drink. In fact... don't. No one's liver is capable of surviving that much alcohol.http://thewrongtreemoviereviews.blogspot.co.uk/

Basically this is a lower-budget "Alien." The differences are, instead of coming from a far-flung planet where its egg form latched itself onto a spaceman, this creature comes from a parallel universe where it returned with a woman who was transported to said parallel universe by some top-secret military group. She was with two others at the time; obviously it didn't go well because she's the only one who returned. The man and woman who head this military experiment are always fighting about which direction the project should go, so now that the s--- has hit the fan some guy from the Department of Defense says they should call in Jan-Michael Vincent (apparently David Hasselhoff was busy that day) to get control of the situation. What follows is the usual "monster-runs-amok" scenario. I was curious to see what this movie would be like, since I had seen "Xtro" and thought it was pretty bizarre and unique; as it turns out, this movie has absolutely nothing to do with the original, so if you're expecting a true sequel you need to know this up front or else you'll be confused and disappointed. That said, "Xtro 2" is generally fast-paced and lively. The creature looks pretty frightening, but you'd like to see more of it. This certainly isn't the type of movie that gets good critical acclaim, but it's a fun horror movie that doesn't embarrass itself compared to others in the genre. I give it a 5 out of 10.