Rare Flix: Carnosaur 3

The third time is...about the same as the second one.  It's fun to play with cliches right?  Anyhow, today's film is Carnosaur 3, the only Carnosaur film that I can't find on DVD or Streaming, at least officially.  I won't say where I found it- to help preserve the source-, but it's not from Netflix.  The film builds off of the first film, which mostly ignoring the second one.  To be fair, they give a basic glossary of what happened in the first film, which not really saying how it all ended.  Seriously, what happened with the 'artificial wombs?!?!?'  They make some new shit about the Dinosaurs, which they call Carnosaurs since...um, the original project was called Carnosaur, I guess.  That's your excuse to make the title fit- okay.  The film falls into most of the usual tropes of Corman's Direct-to-Video schlock.  You've got Marines, killer monsters you barely see and 'feminist' characters that always seem to need a man to rescue them.  Ha ha ha- vague Sexism!  With all of that said, the movie is pretty funny for all of the wrong reasons.  To see what those are, read on...

In the opening scene, random guys attack a military convoy.  They're so bad-ass that they blow up the same truck (at least) twice!

Putting aside a confusing secondary scene (which has military guys in war games with people dressed just like the real bad guys), the villains take the truck to the Port of Los Angeles (from The A-Team fame) and discover...frozen dinosaurs.

The creatures break loose and attack in film-negative vision.  Some cops show up- led by Michael James McDonald, who was also in Carnosaur 2- and, well...

They die too.  I should point out that this 30-foot T-Rex was somehow in the Truck and surprised them with its presence.  I think The Great Wall of China could sneak up on you clods!

 For a change, let's highlight an actually-cool shot.  Granted, it's on screen for about 1/8 of a second, but...here it is.

To contrast this, here's a guy wearing the Dinosaur suit to run.  Gee, those legs sure look like Raptor legs, huh?

Our heroes manage to kill one of the two Raptors, but find that it's cells can regenerate, allowing it to come back to life.  Hurray for Raptor Jesus!

Further compiling the silly, the group is somehow sneak-attacked...by a T-Rex.  That fails for about a dozen reasons.

All of this leads to a silly Climax involving our heroes taking a boat- which the Dinosaurs were making a nest on- out to sea to freeze them.

However, the Raptors get loose and use their advanced brains to both slash the fuse box and bite through the elevator cables.

For the wrap-up, the remaining Marines kill the Raptors, but get cornered by the never-quite-in-the-same-shot-T-Rex.  They do the only sane thing- toss C-4 in its mouth and blow its head up (revealing the pipe holding the puppet's head in the process).

Oh and they blow the ship up, leading us to some unresolved Sequel Bait.  The End.

Three strikes and you're...hilarious.  I'm done with those puns, I swear!  So yeah, Carnosaur 3 was really dumb.  A Female T-Rex is permanently-fertile and apparently lays eggs thanks to two Male Raptors.  There's Slash Fiction about this somewhere, isn't there?  While you try not to think about/search for that, consider that this somehow became a series.  How did we end up with an even number (so far) of Jurassic Park to Carnosaur films.  No matter how many complaints you may level towards Jurassic Park 3, it's still better than this film.  The film is just chock full of those Corman cliches- which actually works in the film's favor.  It's so silly and stock that it kind of works ironically.  If you like this kind of Direct-to-DVD schlock, you'll get a good laugh of it.  It doesn't have Ladd's ridiculous performance from Carnosaur, but is also less claustrophobic than Carnosaur 2.  It's a good middle-ground of crap- if you're into this crap.  Oh and seriously, stop being in so many bad films from the '90s, Michael James McDonald!

Next up, a Horror-Comedy that aims big.  Unfortunately, the film is anything but.  Stay tuned...