Saturday Scream Queen: Maryam d'Abo

Maryam d'Abo is one of the many actresses with a long career behind her, but for whom full-fledged stardom has been elusive. With more than 40 television shows and movies to her name, made over three busy decades, hers is still a face that all but the biggest fans of horror films and thrillers from the 1980s and 1990s will have a hard time placing.

A European actress (born in London, but raised in Paris and Geneva by parents who were of Dutch and Croatian extraction), d'Abo got her start playing the ill-fated, over-sexed babysitter in the goopy sci-fi horror flick "Xtro," and her wide ranging and varied resume sports numerous genre flicks and television shows throughout the 1980s and 1990s, including a lead role on the short-lived series "Something Is Out There," and starring turns in horror films like "Night Life", "Immortal Sins", "Stalked", and "Double Obsession".

D'Abo is, however, perhaps best known for playing Kara, the Russian cello-playing Russian spy in the James Bond flick "The Living Daylights". She used that connection for a flirtation with writing and producing that brought the 2002 documentary film "Bond Girls Are Forever", which explores the connotations of being a Bond Girl and the impact it has on actresses' careers, into being. She has since returned to acting full-time, and in recent years has appeared in horror films "Trespassing" (2004) and "Dorian Gray" (2009).

Xtro: One of the creepiest monster flicks

Xtro (1983)
Starring: Bernice Steger, Phillip Seyer, Maryam D'Abo, and Simon Nash
Director: Harry Bromley Davenport
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

Three years after being abducted by aliens, Sam (Seyer) returns a very different man, and he passes his gooey, gory alien powers onto his young son (Nash).



When I first saw this movie as a kid, it freaked the heck out of me. The father coming back and spreading alien corruption throughout the household, the way the son was transformed, and the way he in turn went after the horny au-paire (D'Abo)... even the creepy way he made deadly things appear with his mental powers. It all seemed very, very scary.

I suspect someone watching the film with less jaded eyes than mine could still find "Xtro" scary. At this point, I find still find some of the movie quite disturbing--Sam's method of returning to human form was not something I recalled, and it is definately creepy; the alien egg-laying scene; and the final scene with the mother... well, up to a point with that one--but in general, I now view this film mostly with a sense of frustration because there are two fundamental things that spoil it for me.

First, there's the fact that there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of rhyme or reason to what the characters do, alien or otherwise. In fact, some of the things that happen are pure "Stupid Character Syndrom"--a character does something just to make sure the plot doesn't come to screeching halt, even if a vaguely intelligent person would take any one of numerous different options.

Second, the director and/or scriptwriter simply doesn't know when enough is enough, and this spoils a number of what otherwise would have been excellent, very scary moments. The movie's ending is the ultimate example of this. I won't go into details, because I would spoil it, but suffice to say, the filmmakers ruin a perfectly good ending. If they had been smart, the film would be about 5-10 seconds shorter.

On the upside, we do get to see D'Abo prance around in absolutely nothing, and the acting is uniformly bland (not quite bad... just flat) so no one stands out as good or bad. Gorehounds might also be impressed with a number of scenes in film. The "Return of Sam" scene is a standout in that sense. "Xtro" also features a well-done electronic score, and those are few and far between.

Nonethless, this is a film that clocks in at the low end of average... although I admit my reaction may partially be due to it not living up to my memories of it. (Maybe I'll get the courage to watch "The Exorcist" again. It's the only movie I walked out because it scared me too badly.)