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 #9: Carnosaur 3: Primal Species (1996)

Remember when Carnousaur 2 script couldn’t definitely decide if to consider the first movie or not, so it just gave an explanation for the dinosaurs that could kinda link the two movies together?

Well, the third one doesn’t even try to follow one of the movies or both, so it’s no wonder it was released in the UK simply as “Primal Species”, might as well use the subtitle as the alternate title, since this one wasn’t even conceived as part of the Carnosaur series, originally.

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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 #6: The Jurassic Games (2018)

If there are laws in genre cinema, one might be that every kind of movie can be made worse, better, or both by including dinosaurs. Even if it can’t, somewill randomly mix dinosaurs with any other subject, so the “dinosaur singularity” will happen, regardless.

Basketball with dinosaurs. Coming of age stories with or about dinosaurs. The decadence of men and its social constructs, with goofy dinosaurs in office suits and vests. Dinosaurs with other dinosaurs. Dinosaurs with guns, or dinosaurs that are also guns. The sky and the abyss stretch open wide forever, and the dino universe expands.

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Dino December #4: Jurassic Galaxy (2018)

So, either someone really liked Dino Crisis 3, or more likely was “inspired” by the Godzilla animated trilogy, which i feel it’s really underrated and often quite maligned just because the 3D CG looks kinda ass…which it does, but the script by Gen Urobuchi is quite good, so much it makes the trilogy worthy of being seen, i’d say.

While it isn’t the case, i find it hard to not think of it, since the premise still see the main crew of interstellar explorers landing on a planet full of dinosaurs, but it lacks the whole patriotic drive of “conquering back the motherplanet Earth” (this isn’t Earth), or the social tensions forming between the different groups and races on board of the ship. Still, space dinosaurs is still quite the proposition that could do for some good b-movie entertaiment, and isn’t exactly a sub-genre….yet, this isn’t even the only “dinosaur sci-fi in space” flick released in 2018.

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Dino December #3: 100 Million B.C. (2008)

While this isn’t the only “dinosaurs and time travels” exploitative mash up, the premise of Navy SEALs travelling back to the prehistoric times in order to undo another time travel accident (basically implying this what happened as a result of the “Philadelphia Incident”), accidentally unleashing an abnormally large T-rex in modern Los Angeles, it’s at least more interesting and shows a modicum of effort, needed to stand out in the overpopulated dinosaur-xploitation market of cheap raptors and TV movie budgets.

Then again, since is from the director of Swamp Shark, Arachnoquake and Ghost Shark, Griff Furst, credited here as Louis Myman, i guess his favorite pseudonym, since he used a nearly identical one later for Ragin Cajun Gators. Not encouraging that a director “Alan Smithee-s” himself, even more because he’s – more or less – properly credited in his other directing and acting roles.

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Dino Dicember #2: Raptor Ranch / The Dinosaur Experiment (2012)

Because Jurassic Farm was too obvious, or lacked the everpopular combo of assonance and allitteration. Still better than the other alternative title this movie goes under, you don’t get much more generic that “The Dinosaur Experiment”.

Just make it nice and obvious for everyone.

Now i would discuss the plot, but there’s very little in that regard. In Fossile Ridge, a reclusive mad scientist has been secretly experimenting with bird DNA, and managed to make dinosaurs while hiding in a Texan cattle ranch. One of the dinos escapes, starts killing people, which prompts the FBI and the local police to investigate.

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Dino Dicember #1: Age Of Dinosaurs (2013)

♪ It Is The Dawning Of… ♪

Picked up this randomly as the first movie to watch for Dino December, and of course it’s an Asylum production. And i didn’t plan it, that’s just my luck, but it’s also quite fittingly basic, so perfect to start this merry marathon!

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Kemurikusa (2019) [REVIEW] | Leaves Of Tree

After the Kemono Friends anime made a fairly forgotten (and at the time even freshly axed) free-to-play thing become one of the biggest sensations of that year…. Kadokawa fucked the series director over, basically, and in a way of karmic retribution, many resented the second season when it came around, both out of spite for Kadokawa’s behaviour. And because the Kemono Friends gravy train was gone by then.

Regardless, TATSUKI continued to work on other projects (see Keifuku-san and Hentatsu, which i already reviewed), and in 2019 he decided to adapted an older work of his, an original net animation called Kemurikusa (released between 2010 and 2012), into a TV anime series (which so far only streaming on Amazon Video), once again tasking the same animation studio of Kemono Friends (studio Irodori, which he was part of) and the same production company (Yaoyoruzu), culminating into a project that didn’t seem raise much interest online.

People knew the director of Kemono Friends was behind it, definitely, but i guess it wasn’t enough, so the Kemurikusa TV adaptation came out without causing much clamor (outside of some circles) or attracting much attention even from dedicated outlets or anime enthusiasts who knew it existed. At least i got that impression.

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