Dino Dicember #27: Jurassic City (2015)

From the director of Silent Night, Zombie Night, and Terror Birds (also editor for many films, including Sand Sharks, obviously), we have yet another dino flick where Los Angeles is attacked by dinosaurs… not a single giant dinosaur, because people that write the synopses for these movie (on Wikipedia and/or IMDB, depends) don’t actually watch them most of the time, or they do watch them drunk and try to piece together the plot later, because there isn’t a T-rex (or equivalent) rampaging alone through LA. Yes, the DVD cover has it, but that’s false advertising.

In this occasion the dinos didn’t arrive via a Stargate-style time portal, but were created in a lab and escaped a secret facility manned by a shadowy government squad, and due to an incident they bring an armored van (containing 3 Monolophosauruses, in the same genus as the T-Rex but acting as this movie’s raptors equivalent) inside a nearby prison, where they just brought a serial killer… and a trio of college girls temporarly detained (having been busted the night before at an obnoxious party). As the dinosaurs break free and kill most guards and soldiers, the girls and the serial killer and are now forced to escape deeper into the prison, bedgrudgingly having to cooperate.

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Dino Dicember #24: Poseidon Rex (2013)

Yes, the ever elusive Water-Dragon type of T-Rex, because nowadays you could make fake monster movie poster art with Pokemons as a joke, and realize someone did it for real already, beat you to it years ago. And if someone had to do it, might as well be the director of cult films like Commando, Armed And Dangerous, and Class of 1984, Mark. L. Lester himself, as he eventually went back to doing B-movies for TV or the home video market after the “Hollywood years”.

Because, really, the sharks enjoyed preying on B-movie beaches for decades, it’s time to move out and let dinosaurs do it for a change. At least in some of the cover art, in this specific case it does happen, but often with movies like this the posters promise more than what the movies themselves can actually deliver.

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Dino Dicember #21: Tammy And The T-Rex (1994)

As pointed out in the Super Mario Bros The Movie review, the 90s had a fascination with anything dinosaur related, and this is definitely another testament to that, a more obscure – not that obscure – comedy horror film that’s still kinda unique, and became a cult sensation, enough to warrant a 2019 uncut, restored to 4K re-release on Blu-Ray.. only in the U.S. Yeah, there’s no cheap UK DVD release for this one, and apparently the italian VHS version is rare as hell… and i draw the line at collecting VHS tapes. I’m sorry, i have to draw the line somewhere, for my own sake.

And yes, that title screen is correct, since the uncut edition has the movie’s original title, “Tanny and the Teenage T-Rex”. Regardless of what title you see, it’s both explicit and incredibly vague, as in, would you expect a teen drama that turns into horror, with a mad scientist transplating the brain of Tammy’s deceased boyfriend into a robot dinosaur, whom then goes around killing Tammy’s jealous ex-boyfriend and his thugs, as they are responsable for his death? No you wouldn’t.

And i gotta admit, i’ve never heard a plot like this.

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Dino Dicember #17: The Lost World (1998)

This one was really a given (and yes, we’re reviewing an adaptation of Burroughs’ The Land That Time Forgot next), not featuring Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World in Dino Dicember…. just wouldn’t have been right. I would have kicked myself if i didn’t.

Then again, it didn’t immediately came to me as an obvious choice, since most people nowadays think about the second Jurassic Park movie, Lost World: Jurassic Park, loosely based on Michael Chrichton’s book The Lost World (sequel to Chrichton’s own Jurassic Park book), itself borrowing elements from (and paying direct homage to) the original 1912 novel of the same name by Arthur Conan Doyle, and even the 1925’s film adaptation of the book, which we briefly referenced before.

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Dino Dicember #12: Terrordactyl / Jurassic Wars (2016)

“Pteranoperil” was too bland, i guess, but feel free to use that one, if you want.

So yeah, i got this while hunting for dinosaur flicks on Amazon, and the UK DVD copy goes under the “Jurassic Wars” title, but at least the cover promises pterodactyls… and the movie is about pterodactyls. Checks out, not always a given with these kind of movie covers that promise more than the movie can actually deliver.

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Dino Dicember #11: The Eden Formula (2006)

Wait, this movie isn’t produced by Roger Corman, how it could it count as the second unofficial sequel/spin-off of the Carnosaur series?

Well, this time the connection is both direct and oblique, as it’s directed (and written) by John Carl Buechler, who worked on the special effects for the 3 Carnosaur movie, and – for whatever reason – he decided to crib stock footage from the first Carnosaur flick. Times.. never change.

Sorry for the screenshots’ abysmal resolutions and quality.

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Dino Dicember #10: Raptor (2001)

With a title that cuts to the chase and it being released 5 years after Carnosaur 3: Primal Species, first question is how and why you would consider it related to the Carnosaur series, at all?

I guess because is produced by Corman yet again under his company New Concorde… and due to the fact it uses stock footage from all the Carnosaur movies. Heck, even the DVD cover it’s also 40 % stock footage of the ones used in the american releases!

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Dino Dicember #8: Carnosaur 2 (1995)

2 years later, following the rise of a new dino-human hybrid race… Wait, this is that type of sequel, just slap another number on the name of the previous movie, and do whatever the fuck you want with it, as long its about the same general theme and/or subject. Continuity, thy name is Corman.

This time we have a group of scientist that go a nuclear mining facility in Yucca Mountains (just missing an atomic Tor Johnson followed by gray, dull narration) to investigate a potential meltdown, but instead find dino eggs in one of the caves. Not, not radioactive dinosaurs, that would have been kinda fun, just the boring old cloned type of mutant dinosaurs. You can guess the rest.

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Dino Dicember #7: Carnosaur (1993)

Another famous one, the first Carnosaur movie, another example of good ol’ Corman’s craftmanship , as he throw this one together very fast, even by its own standards, just to have it out in theathers before Spielberg’s Jurassic Park. A tradition of knock-offs (and “mockbusters” before the term itself was coined) that can’t even wait for the movie they’re knocking off to be released, with scripts written on a bar napkin and then pushed into production, as they damn well knew they wouldn’t survive direct competition in theaher, a legacy carried on by The Asylum in the last decade.

With somehow worst results, but let’s stay on topic.

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Dino December #5: The Lost Dinosaurs / The Dinosaur Project (2012)

With such a title and a plot synopsis, The Lost Dinosaurs comes across as a Congo knock-off, with dinosaurs instead of simians. So i was – if anything – surprised to learn this is filmed in mockumentary/found footage style, which i think it’s a first for these dinosaurs themed flicks. I wasn’t expecting a jurassic take on Blair Witch Project, of all things. I don’t like this style, i really don’t, but i have to respect the effort into coming up with an absurd idea like this, even if the movie turns out to a complete shitshow.

The plot sees Luke, an adventure enthusiast, secretly embark with his father and uncle on an expedition to find the legendary cryptid Mokele Mbembe (basically the african cousin of good ol’ Nessie) in Congo, and in secluded jungle they actually find animals looking like dinosaurs, thought to have gone extinct 65 millions years ago…

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