Monsters On Screen: Xtro (1982)

EDIT 27/09/2024: I recently interviewed Francis Coates about his work on Xtro, as well as touching on his work on other genre productions as a sculptor and modelmaker. You can read it here!

'To do the most disgusting things that we could possibly get away with' was director Harry Bromley-Davenport's imperative when making Xtro. To this end Davenport hired newer actors from theatre and television rather than star actors, to let the budget mainly go to the effects.

Francis Coates was credited under 'creature effects' and had previously worked as a sculptor on various episodes of Doctor Who (as part of freelance firms contracted by the BBC's VFX Department) and Star Wars (on the R2-D2 suits). Assisting Coates was Richard Gregory, who provided puppets and makeup effects to episodes of Doctor Who and Space Precinct.

Coates and the effects team worked from designs by Christopher Hobbs. Hobbs, primarily a production designer (on Derek Jarman's films, Ken Russell's Salome's Last Dance, and the 2000 Gormenghast miniseries), had supplied the flesh-bubbling burning effects for Ken Russell's The Devils and storyboarded the effects sequences in The Company of Wolves. Hobb's work on Xtro went to visualizing the film's transformations.

Family man Sam Philips, abducted by a UFO, returns to Earth as a scuttling alien. It was Francis Coates who decided the alien should walk on all fours, as he was tired of all the monsters he'd made on Doctor Who that were performers walking upright in masks.

Inside the monster suit was mime artist Tim Dry, of the music duo Tik & Tok. Dry and his counterpart Sean Crawford were chosen for their skill in body movements, with Dry playing the monster and Crawford playing a giant Action Man.

Crawford got the better end of the deal as all he was required to do was wear a large static mask (fabricated by Coates & Gregory) and army fatigues, and walk around a set.

Meanwhile Dry was subjected to a life casting of his body in the crab walking position (a photo of which can be found on Coates' website) for the foam rubber suit to be sculpted around, and then for the actual filming had to crabwalk in a damp forest at night while wearing the suit!

Preliminary sculpt of the monster suit by Francis Coates

At the film's climax, Sam has fully transformed into a skeletal, biomechanical alien, seen only very briefly in close-up shot. I'm not sure if there was more than one puppet made for the monster, but I'd imagine the close-ups were of a puppet (though Francis Coates recalls it as a radio controlled one).