12 Days Of Dino Dicember #48: I Am T-Rex (2022)

Time to close off this year’s 12 Days Of Dino Dicember with a family/children dinosaur movie, one ailing from mainland China and also fairly recent, as in released originally in 2022 as “Wo shi ba wang long”(which i assume translates to “The Tyrannosaurus Rex”, as can be seen in its original Chinese theathrical poster) but localized/released online with the “I Am T-Rex” title.

It’s also a CG animated film, because we already had plenty of no budget puppet dinosaurs, some high quality (and some low ass quality) dinosaur stop motion animation, caveman boning of the implied kind, cannibal movies sold as dinosaur flicks, pseudodocumentaries, dinosaur comedies with yellowface or comedy bits that aged like the reptiles themselves, so for the sake of variety, let’s move away from all that shizzle.

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12 Days Of Dino Dicember #45: Jurassic Triangle (2024)

Ah, yes, the parody of Roben Ostlund’s celebrated english-language feature debut. FINALLY!

Imagine that, and that how it would require some wit instead of just any lack of shame, but instead what he have is just another low budget dinosaur film, distributed by Cork’d Entertaiment, a company offering stuff like The Amytiville Murders, Monsternado… and also the quite fun italian horror The Well, but mostly dealing with mockbusters or mockbuster looking cheap flicks, think it as an Asylum adjacent kind of film distributor, just marginally above Wild Eye Releasing that pumps out Mark Polonia films and the like.

So, it’s one of those that you see the opening scene, witness the god awful CGI for the dinosaurs (especially the pterodactyls look shit and seem to have framerate issues like it’s a Pokemon Scarlet/Violet asset), and 5 minutes in, you feel done already, that it would be better to stop while we’re ahead, and we could march to our inevitable grave without deciding to eat so much garbage.

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12 Days Of Dino Dicember #44: Dinosaur Hotel 3 (2024)

Yeah, no waiting about another year, i’m reviewing both Dinosaur Hotel sequels back to back, hoping to Dino Saint Nicholas Of Myra that 2025 doesn’t bring out a Dinosaur Hotel 4.

Please, Jagged Edge Productions, focus on the Winnie The Pooh and fairy tale slasher stuff instead, because to say i didn’t enjoy any of the Dinosaur Hotel films so far.. it’s being overly kind.

Honestly i think i enjoyed working more than the first Dinosaur Hotel, the sequel was a slight improvement but still an experience that felt like a thousand years had passed since i started the film, despite the 72 minutes runtime, but that one had an open ending that was very “battle royale-esque” of sorts, with the frontman/creator going rogue to get back at the new people running the show that tried to push him, leaving on that plot thread for Dinosaur Hotel 3 to pick up.

Oh i guess SPOILERS. Who cares. I don’t. And these movies have barely a plot anyway, the characters are stereotypes at best, and are a struggle to sit through, so bite me, as they say, i’d rather you not bother even for the morbid curiosity some dino buffs might want to satisfy.

Heck, no one even bothered to leave a review on IMDB for this one, that does say a lot.

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[EXPRESSO] Sonic The Hedgehog 3 (2024) | Chaos Control(led)

Time for Shadow to enter the fray, in the third live action Sonic The Hedgehog film.

The plot sees Sonic and his friends Tails and Knuckles summoned to fight a new menace, Shadow, a nother powerful alien hedgehog that was sealed away for the last 50 years in a remote prison, until someone freed him, framing the defeated and basically retired Ivo “Eggman” Robotnik as the culprit, so the trio has to team up with the “Eggster” to find what is going on..

The first one was ok, the second i liked more and felt was a step up from the previous one, and once again this is an improvement, upping the stakes, introducing new characters , managing to pick up the right/good elements from the videogame series (Sonic Adventure 2 in this case) and use them well in this new narrative, committing to its 90s ‘tude even more by having Jim Carrey go full Dumb And Dumber as he plays two characters, both “Eggman” and his grandfather, Gerald Robotnik, doubling the slapstick ham and sillyness, for better or worse.

Honestly, i do enjoy Carrey doing some of his old schtick, even if it’s a bit too much at times.

Also, the effects and CG for Sonic and friends are top notch, arguably the best they’vee ever been, seamlessly blended, he action delivers some fun corny “DBZ but even more for kids” fights, and it does manage to be silly and referential but without being grating, even for adults.

While i find it to be a quite decent kids film, honestly it’s about as good as a Sonic live action filn could have been, in both spirit and form, and while the post ending credits scenes tease of more, it is the cap of a trilogy, providing some closure indeed.

[EXPRESSO] Awaria STEAM | Ghostsmoochers Inc.

After taking the internet by storm with “Johnny Bravo goes to hell for a demon girl harem” AKA Helltaker, vanripper is back with a new game on Steam, Awaria, sporting a new original soundtrack by Mittsies, and being more of a bullet hell- action puzzle game thing “about working in a haunted maintance tunnel”, which yes, means ghost girls to talk, interact and sometimes kiss, though, the Steam page content warning makes it clear by saying “it’s all tame”. It is. Pretty cute designs, still.

It also has the same business model as Helltaker, as in it’s free, but to support the developer you can buy the optional DLC as a “thank you”, which also nets you a digital artbook and a Babezki (a kind of Polish muffin) recipe, but again, you can also unlock the same content in the in-game gallery.

Gameplay is pretty frantic, and has you move your character about to collect items, activate item printers and interact with broken generators, requiring certain items to be fixed in a limited time, while avoiding the ghost girls attacking you, as you die in one hit, a drone will take a hit for you and respawn every 10 seconds, which are lot more than they sound given you’ll need to be constantly zipping around the level.

It’s a 2 hours affair, a bit more if you want to finish the game on Hard difficulty and unlock everything, but it’s quite intense, the gameplay is easy to learn but actually challenging and rewarding, the final boss levels this time around are better designed (as is the game overall compared to Helltaker), Mittsies soundtrack is another banger, pity for the sometimes laggy performance, but it maybe be my old rig.

Once again, i highly recommend playing it and supporting everyone involved.

12 Days Of Dino Dicember #43: Dinosaur Hotel 2 (2022)

To say i didn’t like the first Dinosaur Hotel is being nice, but that won’t change the fact it had some of the worst CG i’ve seen in a while, even for modern cheap low budget dinosaur flicks the effects were plainly pathetic, the premise old and already done better years before.

But since this is a modern low budget dino flick from the UK (it’s another Jagged Edge Production thingie, the same company backing the Winnie The Pooh slasher films, BTW), a sequel was bound to happen… and at least it happened fast, i guess, since only 1 year later, Dinosaur Hotel 2 hit the internet and general VOD services in some regions, and this year they dropped another sequel with Dinosaur Hotel 3. At least they keep the titling consistent and simple.

Curiously, if a movie like this would have been released in the 90s, it would have done the usual “sequel in name only” shuffle we’ve discussed countless times before, but in this case we’re doing actual sequels, for best or worst, even if it doesn’t quite matter, as we’re still doing the same idea, again, with people doing a survival game in a place full of dinosaurs, with the jackpot for the lone survivor being ONE MIL-oh, wait 10 MILLION DOLLARS, gotta outbid Dr. Evil.

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12 Days Of Dino Dicember #39: Dinosaur From The Deep (1993)

Don’t worry, this one has dinosaurs in it.

Most likely, anyway.

Didn’t think about that being a required feature, but that’s why you should do some research first, just in case, otherwise you get duped into watching a cannibal movie, somehow.

No my friends, this time we’re in for some semi-notorious lower case Z-grade filet from France, with Norbert Moutier’s Dinosaur From The Deep.

After all, the success of Jurassic Park wasn’t an USA thing only, at all, so here comes a low budget film done to capitalize on Spielberg’s dino opus and hopefully trick enough people (especially younger dinosaur enthusiasts) into renting or buying it on VHS, only to realize it’s basically a “shot in shitteo”/”home video film” of French people with no budget.

What were they gonna in 1993/4, look up the metascore on sites that didn’t exist yet, or required anyone in the household NOT to use the phone?

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12 Days Of Dino Dicember #37: Two Lost Worlds (1951)

h boy, two lost worlds for the price of one?

Sign me up for one ticket, Jimmy boy, because you know a movie it’s good when it marketed the same way as grocery store coupon for breakfast cereals or boxes of cuetips.

It’s kinda funny too how curiously there wasn’t a Lost World adaptation (talking about the Conan Doyle book, obviously) in the 50s, so i guess, just in case, they doubled the worlds lost, just to give you more bang for your buck, or make you believe that only to get suckered into watching a dinosaur film that couldn’t even afford its own dinosaurs.

Leaving aside the dinosaurs/reptiles don’t show up until 45 minutes into this… 61 minutes film, this in independent production that literally borrows his dinosaur footage from One Million B.C., the 1940 film that will end up being mined of its of stock footage for decades, as in used not a quick reference to the olden days, just ripped off because they couldn’t afford the special effects for the prehistoric creatures they wanted to as a selling point on the poster.

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Ye Old Remaster Wsihslsti (for Saint Nick)

A bonus round, meant for the previous “draught”, but it still isn’t Christmas, as Mr. Wright would point out, so enjoy!

Since the industry is experiencing the inevitable resource creep and is eventually forced right now to reap what they sow, as the new consoles “have no games” because mainstream big budget videogames have pigeonholed themselves into a situation where is too expensive and takes too long to even make one of these (emulating the big budget cinema industry they wanted so much to be to a tee), remasters have been the way too go.

Old crap with new paint or fixes to the rope itself takes still less than making a new game from scratch, is easy as you can cater to the evergrowing nostalgia market (due to the gaming populace aging because natural entropy is a thing and your flesh will fail you, eventually) longing for ages long gone, be it the Atari early days or the mascote platformer craze of the 90s, you can safely bet on an already established name, and the market is big enough that even obscure shit like Felix The Cat videogames of yore and Bubsy can get a collection with improvements, quality of feature, and shady publishers like Piko Interactive can publish in 2022 (on Steam at the moment, with console releases coming) a somehow buggier, worse looking version of Glover than when it launched on Nintendo 64. In 1998.

Be it collections of enhanced ports or remasters that just update the graphical side of things, the public craves and buys these for a variety of reasons, publishers are more than happy as it cheaper all together, so in the spirit of the time i will be dotting down my own wishlist of remasters/ports/re-releases that i would like to see.

Order is casual, btw.

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Sabretooth (2022) [REVIEW] | Beeg Cat Means Beeg Trouble!

Before the year ends, it’s time to fullfil some promises nobody care about, so after reviewing Attack Of The Sabretooth (AKA Primal Park) back in whenever that happened, i realized almost before i finished writing the review, that this was sorta/kinda/vaguely a sequel to another movie about sabertooth tigers, as in they were sequelized only when localized in some foreign markets, as they have nothing to do with each other… aside from the writer, being Tom Woosley for both otherwise unrelated movies about extinct tiger species going about killing people.

Still more sensible than most of the italian cannibal film being retitled as “Cannibal Holocaust 2” when not even the lead actor’s dingus is a shared asset.

Simply titled “Sabretooth”, this is yet another TV movie that debutted on the ol’ Sci-Fi channel about killer animals that might or not be mutants or resurrected extinct evolutionary cul-de-sacs because Spielberg did a killing resurrecting the ancient lineage of the KFC bucket a decade ago.

And Roger Corman was also there to rip chickens up with its Carnosaur, then again, Clint Howard WAS eating chicken in front a chicken coup (and dinosaurs).

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