Xtro 3: Watch the Skies (sometimes credited as Xtro: Watch the Skies) is a 1995 science-fiction horror thriller film directed by Harry Bromley Davenport and starring Sal Landi, Andrew Divoff, Karen Moncrieff and Jim Hanks. It is the third film in the low-budget British science fiction/horror Xtro series.
Plot
In a rundown motel, Lieutenant Martin Kirn (Sal Landi) meets with a reporter to tell what happened on his final military mission.
Since at least World War II, the United States government has successfully covered up very real proof of U.F.O.s. However, when a group of U.S. Marines is dispatched to a deserted island to defuse an old ordinance. The military task force is not made-up of elite military units.
Kim learns that Captain Fetterman (Andrew Divoff) chose the soldiers for the mission as they are expendable. Despite their inadequacies, they soon suspect something is amiss about the mission. They uncover unsettling evidence, old films documenting brutal medical experiments on aliens, and find one person living on the island who Fetterman wants dead.
They then discover a lone surviving alien out for revenge, and a military intelligence plot to sacrifice them and conceal existence of the encounter. The military is concerned the shroud of mystery is about to be lifted and decide to abandon the Marines. The lone person living on the island had conducted experiments on the alien before the alien had escaped.
Cast
Sal Landi as Lieutenant Martin Kirn
Andrew Divoff as Captain Fetterman
Karen Moncrieff as J.G. Watkins
David M. Parker as Corporal Dermot Reilly
Jim Hanks as Private Friedman
Andrea Lauren Herz as Private Banta
Daryl Haney as Private Hendricks
Nigel Gibbs as Smythe
Robert Culp as Major Guardino
Brian Cavanaugh as Wolf
Paul Hayes as Mr. Atkins
Jeanne Mori as Erica Stern
Al Ruscio as The General
Martin Starr as Biff Atkins
Lisa London as Melissa Meed
Production
The film was shot in British Columbia.
Director Harry Bromley's first film in America. The movie has no direct links to the first two films
Reception
Creature Feature gave the film 3 out of 5 stars, finding that film has moments of inspiration, but fining a problem with the ending. Monster Hunter found the movie smart in theory but lacking in execution. In addition, it noted the film could be brutal. Letterbox DVD gave the film 3.5 stars out of 5, noting that while it had a low budget, and borrows some from the movie Predator (film), that there are enough original ideas to make the film worthwhile.
Home media
The film has been released on DVD twice. The first DVD was released in 1999 by Image Entertainment, who coincidentally, would release the first two entries in the Xtro series on DVD years later. In 2005, the film was released yet again on DVD by Showcase Entertainment. Both DVDs are now discontinued.
In 2020, Xtro 3 was released on Blu-ray by Vinegar Syndrome. Extras include new interviews with director Harry Bromley Davenport and screenwriter Daryl Haney.