Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		4.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		4.0
Overall		4.0

Xtro 3: Watch the Skies Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Brian Orndorf February 18, 2020

1982’s “Xtro” is just one of those genre movies that benefited from the VHS boom of the 1980s. It offered provocative box art and provided a gruesome ride, with co-writer/director Harry Bromley Davenport ignoring good taste to deliver something nasty and sellable, trying to make his mark. It’s not a memorable feature, but it did inspire ire from the likes of Roger Ebert, who described the film as “one of the most mean-spirited and ugly thrillers I’ve seen in a long time.” Whatever it was to fans and detractors, it was a meal ticket for Davenport, who returned to the saga with 1990’s “Xtro II: The Second Encounter,” trying to restart the brand name. In 1995, he finally cried uncle with “Xtro 3: Watch the Skies,” which hoped to offer the faithful more creature anarchy, only here Davenport tries to go all “Aliens” with the project, bringing in big guns, explosions, and Hanks. Well, Jim Hanks.

Lieutenant Kirn (Sal Landi) is in hiding, ready to meet with a newspaper reporter and share everything he knows about alien encounters on Earth. Detailing his recent past, Kirn recounts his orders from Major Guardino (Robert Culp), who’s sending his best man to a deserted island, once the home of a Japanese internment camp, tasking him with preparation for the construction of a refueling station, ordered to remove all hidden weapons left behind after WWII. Joined by Captain Fetterman (Andrew Divoff) and Watkins (Karen Moncrieff), Kirn is forced to bring the worst of the worst with him, commanding Friedman (Jim Hanks), Banta (Andrea Lauren Herz), Hendricks (Daryl Haney), and Riley (David M. Parker) to do the dirty work. Arriving at the location, the team soon encounters a UFO buried in concrete, with an errant explosive accidentally opening a wall, permitting the creature inside to escape, and he’s angry, looking to master a mission of revenge on the American military that destroyed his mate for scientific research.

The general idiocy of “Xtro 3” is immediately displayed, but Davenport manages to keep things light, encouraging mad flashes of paranoia as Kirn shares his experience with a reporter, trying to avoid government exposure. The screenplay (credited to Haney) soon launches into a central odyssey, with Kirn the upstanding soldier forced to accept a strange mission from Guardino, who, for some reason, has his wall-less office set up in the middle of an airplane hangar, complete with a presidential photo and a phone line. Kirn is tasked with clearing an island of explosive devices, going to the Wrong Guys to help with the orders, creating a sort of “Police Academy” vibe without overt slapstick, pitting the goons against Fetterman and his secretive ways with mission specifics.

Acting isn’t strong in “Xtro 3,” and there are no scares in the film, which largely consists of military antagonisms and characters crawling through tight spaces once the UFO is discovered and, naturally, the soldiers immediately enter the ship without thinking things through. Horrors are visited on the humans, and the only thing the sequel does right is to shift the focus of villainy to the top brass, with the alien naturally enraged to watch his spouse dissected right in front of him during the 1950s, killing their unborn child. Perhaps unintentionally, Davenport makes a movie where viewers are encouraged to root for the bloodthirsty visitor, who picks off the team with acidic slime, spider-like webbing, and its own experimentation with medical instruments. It’s difficult to understand Haney’s storytelling goals with “Xtro 3,” as he sympathizes with Kirn and his soldiers, but also the alien, yet the sides never team up to take on their shared enemy: the U.S. military. It’s such a missed opportunity.

Xtro 3: Watch the Skies Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Offering miracles to B-movie fans everywhere, Vinegar Syndrome offers "Xtro 3" an impressive AVC encoded image (1.85:1 aspect ratio) presentation. Billed as "Newly scanned & restored in 2K from its 35mm original camera negative," "Xtro 3" has probably never looked this good before, easily reaching the limits of the original cinematography with strong detail, which delivers when surveying leathered faces and gruesome special effects. UFO interiors retain strong textures as the characters feel around alien architecture and encounter glistening slime, and costuming is fibrous, offering rugged military outfits. Colors are distinct, embracing beach hues and deep greenery for forest encounters, mixed with blasts of blue skies. Clothing explores blues and combat uniforms. Human and alien skintones are exact. Delineation is communicative. Grain fluctuates, but always remains film-like. Source is in fine shape.

Xtro 3: Watch the Skies Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Production precision when it comes to an immersive aural experience isn't there for "Xtro 3," which seems perfectly content just being heard. The 2.0 DTS-HD MA mix isn't remarkable, running into inherent limitations that tend to favor only music and dialogue exchanges. Performances are intact, managing excitable actors engaging in yelling matches or delivering light banter. The synth-laden score is equally pronounced, handling changes in mood and suspense stings, periodically competing with voices. Sound effects are limited, especially with the feature's extensive use of explosions, which don't offer any heft. Alien attacks fare a little better. Some fuzziness in the highs is detected at times.

Xtro 3: Watch the Skies Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• "Winning and Losing" (20:07, HD) is an interview with Harry Bromley Davenport, with the director of "Xtro 3" admitting from the start that he's made very few good movies during his career. The production brought him to California for the first time, hoping to sustain work with another installment of the "Xtro" franchise, which kept Davenport employed. Taking inspiration from a magazine article, Davenport found a writer in Daryl Haney, developing a working relationship with the young actor. Describing the shoot as "hellish," Davenport admits he was a screamer, taking six weeks of long days to make the picture, struggling to trust his cast and deal with periodic shutdowns and injuries. The interviewee highlights strange influences, such as "Faces of Death," and goes into the realities of the alien puppet and its limited movement, also revealing how dangerous the pyro effects found in the film really were. Most unexpectedly, Davenport shares an anecdote about Milton Berle's set visit, and he remains positive about the whole experience, offering that he's "not ashamed" of "Xtro 3."

• "Acting Like a Writer" (18:08, HD) sits down with screenwriter Daryl Haney, who shares his early career inspiration and acid experimentation. Like many others in Hollywood, Haney was offered his big break by Roger Corman, who showed the young man the ways of the business, keeping him employed with screenplay assignments while Haney tasted the big time, hired to write "Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood." After meeting Davenport, Haney worked to win a job on "Xtro 3," trying to turn the director's concept for an epic "Xtro Park" cinematic adventure into something possible for a limited budget. Haney's own audition is recalled, learning about the art of acting while claiming a role in the feature. Sharing his memories of the shoot, Haney admits he was drunk, but still embraced the Iverson Ranch location, home to cowboy film history. The interviewee parts with an appreciation for B-movies and their lasting power.

• And a Trailer (1:21, HD) is included.

Xtro 3: Watch the Skies Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

"Xtro 3" runs out of gas long before it reaches its conclusion, with Davenport needless padding the feature with bland action sequences and numerous explosions, while Fetterman isn't much of a pressure point on the plot, which does better with Kirn and his panic to protect his soldiers. The alien presence is adequate as far as these things go, with Davenport lifting some moves from "Predator" to make his creature exciting, but at least the little guy has a distinct motivation, allowing "Xtro 3" to disrupt expectations by making a tiny ghoul into something of a hero.