Reed Alexander's Horror Review of 'Xtro 3' (1995)

SPOILERS!!!

Holy crap that was bad. But I mean, we expected that. Absolutely none of the Xtro Series was good and if we were expecting them to turn out a gem by now, we would need to reassess our lives. The first one made NO fucking sense. A fucking alien impregnates a woman that gives birth to a full-grown man and I don't even remember the rest because it was so fucking incoherent. Xtro 2 (1990) was at least an Alien (1979) ripoff, chest-burster scene included, and stuck to the basics. All three involve completely different aliens and basically have nothing to do with one another. This one was also just a simple creature feature, with a muppet prop that was s bad it was reminiscent of Carnasaur (1993). That's the production value you get. Something that looks like a made-for-TV movie that came out of the 80s, not the 90s.

But everything is bad. That's why we like these movies. They can't get a damn thing right and that's sorta charming. So, let's go down the just incredible list of mistakes made by this movie. The acting is SO bad. I'm not sure if it even qualifies as porno bad. The acting is like an after-school special from the 70s. Even worse, the characters are fucking ridiculous. They're supposed to be US Marines but they come off as a rag-tag group of mercenaries. It's like they have no training whatsoever. They're constantly panicking to the point of being in hysterics. It's like the usual portrayal of women in horror, except it's every character.

The atmosphere is nonexistent. There was like one time when they used a fog machine, but outside of that, nothing. No filters, no lighting, not even music, not really. They just shot at night when they needed it to be dark. There was zero effort there. And I swear it's the same soundtrack as Xtro 2. Like, the exact same.

Costuming was not much to speak of. The actors were dressed in fatigues that didn't even remotely look like marines gear. They looked like NAM reenactors. I think their helmets were plastic. They didn't even have proper weapons. Mind you, there wasn't really any reason to have weapons, as they were supposed to be bomb and munitions disposal. But they had like, one riffle in the whole group of six soldiers? Everyone else just had a sidearm. It was weird.

And HO-LE-CRAP the FX were bad. When I said murderous muppet, that was not a joke. The rubber monster is a muppet. There's one scene where you can see the stick that moves the muppet's left hand. I mean, for a muppet, it isn't bad looking... but we aren't exactly watching the fucking Muppet Show. It's so corny it's embarrassing and you just can't help but laugh. Then there's the 'webbing' that this creature makes for some fucking reason. It's literally, not figuratively, the same thing you get from a Halloween shop.

The plot was simple but then quickly becomes incoherent. They're a bomb and munitions disposal unit. So it makes sense that they set off explosives until they accidentally set the alien creature free. But then they find its ship and it all goes to hell from there. There's something to do with light sensitivity that they never explain or really do anything with. Once they uncover the alien, the brass leaves them there to die, but then bombs the island, and then sends troops, which was the problem that uncovered the dark government secret to begin with. Just leave them there and the damn alien will kill them all. That was the original plan, just let it happen. You can kill them if they somehow find a way off the island.

I mean, obviously, I only recommend this movie to Riffers. It's marvelously bad. I feel like you have to put effort into a movie to make it this bad, except it's clearly the lack of effort that got us here. I officially declare this movie 'so bad it's good.'