There’s no more Carnosaur movies for me to review, and while this isn’t directly related to that series, nor comes from one of his companies, it’s directed by another prolific director versed in both cult classics and huge big box blockbuster successes, Mark L. Lester, here clearly in his “TV B-movies” phase, decades after his adaptation of Stephen King’s Firestarter , Roller Boogie, good ol’ Commando or Class of 1984.
As one could simply guess, this is indeed a dinosaur TV movie made for the Sci Fi Channel, produced by Lester’s American World Pictures, and apparently was the highest rated tv movie of this type commissioned by and for “SiFy”. At least according to Mark L. Lester’s bio on IMDB.
The plot it’s that pterodactyls have survived and thrived to the present day, nesting into a dormant volcano within the forest of Turkey, preying on whoever and whatever they come across.
So of course that’s exactly where a group of teenagers are led for a science expedition by Professor Lovecraft (pretty much all the characters are named after science fiction and fantasy writers, that’s cute), but worry not, there are also US commandos led by Captain Berge (played by Coolio) hunting Russian terrorists that supposedly are hiding inside the nearby dormant volcano.
Sadly, this doesn’t actually mean that we get human-pterodactyl hybrid terrorists. 😦
On the positive side you get to see the pterodactyls killing someone in the first 5 minutes pre-credit scene and a lot of people shooting at the creatures, which is nice since everything else falls in line with the expected, with most of the characters being disposable annoying stereotypes, the supposed students played by people in their 40s, and by that i mean by actors you’ve never heard about, and it’s telling the only “star billed” persons include Coolio, alongside Cameron Daddo (Inland Empire, Hope Island) and Amy Sloan (The Day After Tomorrow, The Aviator).
But then again this a movie that has a scene where they observe a huge pile of giant bird pee and feces, that’s how the characters learn that a giant bird thing might be nearby, and it’s almost 3 minutes long, overall, and this alone makes it clear what kind of movie this is, so it’s no surprising the acting it’s mostly poor all around, but i’ve seen worse. Yes, even Coolio is not that bad.
Then there’s stuff like the dumb bitchy bimbo immediatly jumping into a lake naked, because nudity… well, made for TV nudity, so none. But this leads to the hilarious last second survival of the bitchy characters, as she throws her towel to the pterodactyls in desperation… and she actually survives. XD Well, at least she does for that encounter.
About the CG for the pterodactlys… it’s decent for the time, scope and budget of this production, i’ve seen plenty worse from incredibly recent movies. The gore and effects are cheap, but enough to be laughable and fun in a cheesy dumbass way, especially the greenscreens are so fuckin obvious they’re chuckleworthy, but it’s not that cheap and ramshackled, as they have cash for some decent puppets, some props for close ups, and there are some gory scenes of young pterodactyls feeding on a still alive soldier, that’s surprisingly grisly. Again, the gore is pretty cheap and economical, yes, but i’ve seen far cheaper, and it’s a TV movie, so expectations aren’t exactly high.
It’s not a required watch, there’s nothing memorable about Pterodactyl in any way, but for the bad b-movie dinosaur buffs, this is honestly above the serviceable, if we’re talking TV movie tier stuff.
Bad but still enjoyable cheese, even if the plot is basically Raptor Island but with pterodactyls this time around.
Mark Lester would act as producer or executive producer (and sometimes writer) for more made-for-TV monster flicks like Dragonwasps or Yeti: Curse Of The Snow Demon, but only in 2018 he came back to direct one, with Poseidon Rex, which we already covered in the first proper Dino Dicember 2 years ago.
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