Aaron1375 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.

happyendingrocks Considering how many tantalizing avenues were suggested but not explored in the surprisingly killer original Xtro, it's initially disappointing that The Second Encounter opts to all but abandon the entirety of its predecessor in favor of a more generic humans vs. alien bug-hunt venture. However, if you can ignore the seen-it-all-before pastiche that drives this follow-up, there are enough entertaining aspects of Xtro II to make it a decent way to occupy yourself for 90 minutes.This is a film that doesn't just borrow ideas from other movies, it blatantly copies plot elements and even entire sequences from its source materials. The gist of the story is basically a smaller scale version of Aliens, and the references to James Cameron's brilliant monster mayhem extravaganza are so numerous and obvious that The Second Encounter bears more resemblance to that film than it does to the modest creature feature its title name-checks. The grainy video feed images the armed heroes broadcast to their command post and the extended dwelling inside ventilation ducts and dripping smoke-filled corridors during the action sequences are resoundingly familiar, and there's even massive hip-mounted weaponry utilized here that almost precisely mirrors the impressively imposing machine guns Colonial Marines Vasquez and Drake carried into battle on LV-426. Our scientist-turned-warrior heroine is clearly modeled to be an amalgamation of Ellen Ripley and Sarah Connor, and this homage is greatly heightened by actress Tara Buckman's often startling resemblance to Linda Hamilton. Hell, even the lurking creature itself looks more like an Alien than the being from Xtro, so there really aren't too many moments in this monument to undisguised mimicry that aren't accompanied by a striking sense of deja vu.If you can forgive The Second Encounter for all of that, then you'll find plenty to keep you amused in this unabashedly B-caliber sci-fi/horror/action hybrid.It's curious why this was even pegged as an extension of Xtro, since nothing in the story even remotely draws upon the events of that outing. The happenings here are set in a top-secret subterranean facility called Nexus, where a team of scientists have developed a device which can instantaneously transport researchers to distant dimensions to make contact with whatever alien lifeforms they might find there. After three explorers disappear through the portal and only one comes back, the Nexus team scrambles to organize a rescue party and stabilize the traumatized survivor so that they can learn exactly what happened during her visit to regions beyond (what they don't know is that her close encounter came back with her). To help remedy this snafu, Dr. Shepherd, a disgraced former Nexus administrator, is brought back into the fold, along with a small squadron of heavily armored soldiers, who are mostly on hand to snarl out charmingly inane alpha male dialogue and provide some firepower to combat the unknown alien assailant.Early on, reference is made to the destruction of an identical installation in Texas at the hands of Dr. Shepherd, who was previously the only one to successfully return from a teleportation into deep space. The chasm between this back-story and the first Xtro film is so wide that at first it seems like a sequel we didn't know about was made in between the two movies, and the establishment of that portion of the narrative gets this outing off to a rather sluggish start. But once the monster tears its way out of the chest of its unwitting host and begins whittling down the cast, the film moves along at a fast clip, packing in plenty of gore and a couple of sturdy jump scares to keep things interesting.As the battle between man and mucous-covered beast plays out, the movie falters a bit by relying on a few befuddling and corny set-ups for some of the carnage. My favorite of these concerns the fate of one member of the heavily-armed and highly-trained strike force, who's perfectly willing to cross the threshold into an unknown world and confront the mysterious menace there when the mission begins, but later freezes up in utter terror when he's called upon to climb down a ladder, a bout of hesitation that leads to him meeting the business end of the monster's razor-sharp claws.As before, the creature effects are well-realized, and the expansive sets which bring the interior of the complex to life are especially nicely rendered considering the film's budget. None of the bloodshed rivals the delicious high-points of the first Xtro, but the allotment doled out here is likewise handled solidly.Granted, this movie does require you to sift through a fair amount of mediocrity and outright stupefying implausibility (I dare you to figure out how one of the soldiers is able to detonate a C-4 charge a few inches away from his face without suffering even a scratch). But if you're in a generous mood and don't mind turning off your brain for an hour-and-a-half, The Second Encounter is an enjoyably mindless romp.

Rautus Xtro II: The Second Encounter has nothing to do with the first Xtro mainly because the Director had the rights to the name "Xtro" but not the story of the first film so they could have any type of Alien scenario and make it a sequel to Xtro, this is why the Xtro films have no connection between each other and why the Aliens are different so Xtro II is a completely different film to the first Xtro.The plot is about a group of scientists that have created a dimensional gateway to another universe called the Nexus, three people go through the gateway while the scientists watch through a camera on their suits. They see some weird thing in the distance and go towards it then suddenly their cameras shut off and they're trapped in the Nexus, so they call for a group Marines and a scientist that has been in the Nexus to go the base, they arrive their and later on the gateway opens with one life-form detected. Of course the women that has escaped has one of the Aliens in her and soon it bursts out of her (Just like Alien). Then the marines go around searching the base for the Alien while it slowly kills them off.Xtro II is a mix of Alien and Aliens, even the one weapon that marine uses is similar to the Smartguns used in Aliens and the Alien itself looks a bit like the Xenomorph in Alien. I did enjoy watching Xtro II: The Second Encounter and if you're in to low budget sci-fi horror flicks then check Xtro II out for some Alien copying fun. 10/10

Theo Robertson I hated the original XTRO but I did recognise there`s something bizarrely unique about it and that it does have a cult following , but there`s nothing unique about this " Sequel " it`s just an ALIENS clone with only Paul Koslo treating the film with the contempt it deserves . In fact it`s not even bad enough to be good which explains this very short review