Rare Flix: Raptor (2001)

What are you- chicken?!?  In the case of today's creatures, the answer is kind of 'yes.'  Wait- haven't I used this lead-in before?  Let's start over...

Did you ever see a crappy film and think 'man, I wish they made more of that?!?'  Well, if so, Roger Corman is your best friend.  Wait...that's not right.  One more try...

The third time is...about the same as the second one.  It's fun to play with cliches right?  Okay...let me figure this out...

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Today's Film is Raptor, a 2001 Film that is a hodge-podge of a new Story and old Footage.  Not content with 3 Carnosaur Films, New Concorde made a 4th...and called it Raptor.  The Film actually is said to feature T-Rexes of various sizes (not a thing), but we'll let that slide.  Why not just make Carnosaur 4?  You made Angel 4- and that was after Part 3 being The Final Chapter!  Here's the reason for the re-used Intros now- pretty much all of the major F/X Shots are reused from the previous Carnosaur Films.  Roger Corman using F/X Shots over again- what a shock!  The actual Story is...pretty much what you expect.  Say it with me- Government Experiment gone awry creates dinosaurs and they get loose.  Can our Hero- Eric Roberts- stop the evil Corbin Bernsen?  To find out, read on...

In the Cold Open, some young Adults are killed by a creature with green POV.  When will they run out of colors for these POV shots?!?

The Police- led by Roberts- are on the call.  He also calls in an Animal Control person...who just happens to be an ex-girlfriend.  Naturally.

Oh and the Actors playing corpses can't hold their breath and/or stay still for 1 minute of a shot!

Thus begins the Stock Footage Train!

Right off the bat, we see the Poultry Truck from Carnosaur and later Black Deputy goes back to the Universal Lot to get killed by not-Raptors.  When will he learn?!?

Since there's not much to say about the Plot- Sheriff finds out what is going on, gets caught and the Military shows up- let's point out how sill the mixing of the Shots are.

Late in the Film, this Lady is attacked in the Elevator and turns into a completely-different woman!

Later still, Bernsen sees the Military Helicopter (the 2nd one, that is) arriving...much later than where he is. Damn Time Shifts!

He steals the generic yellow jumper from an Agent, but only so...he can be barely-matched to some footage of a guy in a yellow suit being killed in Carnosaur.  Naturally!

For the climax of crap, Roberts takes a vehicle (from Carnosaur) footage to kill the T-Rex.  In the 2nd bit, you can clearly see the make of the vehicle AND the original Actor.  Finally, the same vehicle- some sort of digger- is now a different, yellow vehicle to push the creature back into the base.

I guess if you're color blind and lack object permanence, this is a fluid sequence!

To wrap this all up, we are told that everything was covered up- in Narration!- and they cut to a new Lab where...they cloned Bernsen and the other Doctor?!?  Why?  Huh?  The End.

Damn lazy stuff.  The whole thing is just bizarre and ridiculous.  To reiterate, they made a new Film and awkwardly made it work with the F/X Shots they already had done.  Night turns to day.  Inside turns to outside.  The Facility alternates between being a Building, a bunker, the inside of a Ship and back around again!  Somehow the Facility is now next to a Quarry for one shot!  Helicopters seem to travel through time warps as from the inside it looks like daytime, but it looks like night-time from the outside.  In one bit, a Pilot is killed by a Raptor...who is clearly from a different location entirely!  Did that Raptor/Mini-T-Rex teleport there or did their Shots just not match?!?  You decide!  No wait- I do!  This Movie is all sorts of bollocks.  That said, it is pretty damn hilarious at times.  I don't think they meant to make a Comedy, but they did!  Speaking of not knowing what Genre you are, one Scene involving a girl (Roberts' Daughter in the Story) flat-out turns into Softcore Porn for a few minutes.  I expect a minute or two from this kind of thing, but the pair dry hump (with only her being naked) for a good 6-7 minutes and then go to leave...whereupon they are attacked.  Don't turn into Please Don't Eat My Mother on me without warning!  Let me leave you now with the most fake-looking effects in the Film...

Next up, I dive head-first into some random, blind Reviews.  I don't know what to expect, so how can you?  Stay tuned...

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...

Totally-Lazy Cover Art: Raptor (2001) + Bonus

Jim Wynorski is a master of recycling- at least when it comes to movies.  For example, his 2001 film Raptor is a pile of Stock Footage with a new story built around it.

In fact, even the DVD Cover uses Stock Footage.

You're probably wondering two things.  One- why is there a T-Rex on a DVD Cover for a film called Raptor?  Two- why does it look familiar?

Well, here's the answer to your second question...

Yes, they just took the T-Rex from the Carnosaur 2 Box Art, re-shaded it and slapped it onto this one.

It is only fitting, however, as the film uses Stock Footage from the film, as well as Carnosaur, Carnosaur 3 and many others.

As a Bonus, I'll include the Trailer to the film as well.  Keep an eye out to see how much of it is Stock Footage.

Lastly, I have a request- if you can give a link to see Raptor (that's not Bit Torrent, if possible), I would be very appreciative.

Corman Trash: Carnosaur

What are you- chicken?!?  In the case of today's creatures, the answer is kind of 'yes.'  Today's film is Carnosaur, Roger Corman's answer to Jurassic Park.  He said 'This made how much money?!?  Make me one, but for one-one-hundredth of the cost.'  Now you long-time readers of the site are probably asking 'Why review Carnosaur almost two years after Carnosaur 2?'  Well, there's no real good answer.  The sequel was available on Disc at the time, while the other films weren't.  I got bored one night- since most of my crap is already in my new place- and watched Carnosaur on Streaming.  Were you expecting something deeper?  If it makes you feel any better, I'm going to go ahead and do Carnosaur 3 next.  You'll have to wait, shitty horror film with Kevin Nash!  So what is the original about?  Well, it's about a Dinosaur or two running loose in a small town (sure is cheaper than building a whole Park).  You won't possibly get the two films mixed up, no matter what Gene Siskel said on the box.  That said, Carnosaur has its own sort of crazy charm to it.  To find out just what you may have been missing for the last 20 years, read on...

Why do the Credits roll over Stock Footage of Chickens in a plant?  The answer to that is something extremely-silly, so let's cover it now...

Due to accident/design, Dinosaur genes get into some Chickens and they infect the local supply.  I feel for the Chicken that laid this thing...

With a single Dinosaur- which may be a Raptor or a mini-Tyrannosaurus Rex (pre-Area 407)- on the loose, the body-count ramps up.  The other thing that shows up a lot is...

...some of the goofiest effects in the last thirty years.  Seriously, could that BE more of a puppet.  Damn!

Speaking of goofy, this one scene features the puppet Dino- which again, is what size exactly?- biting a lady's leg off.

Oddly, she screams while its biting, but suddenly gets silent once it bits off of the limb.  Huh?

The whole thing boils down to this one lady- Diane Ladd- and her plan to get rid of the human race.  Her plan- infect the human race with a virus to make us lay Dinosaur eggs.  No, really.

My issue- she goes on like this for ten minutes, while our hero just sits there HOLDING A GUN ON HER. Do something, you idiot!

In a completely superfluous scene, Black Sheriff wanders onto the Universal Lot to kill a Dinosaur- which, for no clear reason, is a Raptor.  The main Dinosaur is a T-Rex (natch), so how did this one come about?

Not content to just rip-off the concept of Jurassic Park, Corman rips off Humanoids from the Deep ripping-off Alien with this shot of Ladd delivering a Dinosaur.

Oh and she gets burned to death by a Hazmat team, since we're ripping off Zombi 3 while we're at it.  Yea.

For the finale, our hero and his hippie girlfriend fight the T-Rex using machines from the quarry.  This scene does boast the best effects of the film- hurray for low standards!  It's also needlessly gory since that helps sell a movie.

After that, the Hazmat team kill our heroes and they literally toss out a plot point about 'artificial wombs' right before the end.  Seriously, that happens!  Super dark ending for the win!

When puppets run wild!  The film has some legitimately-good moments to it, but not a lot.  The most fun you'll have with this film is laughing at the silly plot, goofy effects and awkward acting.  There aren't really any great Actors in this movie- at least in the classical sense.  Clint Howard- that's all I need to say.  The film is chock full of goofy stuff, whether it's a weird scene in a Diner, the super-forced romance sub-plot or the overly-long 'explain the plot' scene near the end.  The film is helped by its goofy effects and over-the-top gore.  There is a lot of random killing in this movie too, so it's never really boring.  Any film in which Clint Howard is stealth-killed by a Raptor has some merit to me.  If you view this as a serious film, you'll be very disappointed.  If you view it as a Corman cash-in film, you can have a good time with it.  Take us away, random pair of pictures on the wall...

Up next, the third and final film in the series (not counting Raptor- long story).  When in doubt, throw in Marines!  Stay tuned...

Forgotten Sequels: Carnosaur 2

Did you ever see a crappy film and think 'man, I wish they made more of that?!?'  Well, if so, Roger Corman is your best friend.  In conjunction with the release of Jurassic Park in 1993, Corman's New Horizons (changed from New Concorde) put out Carnosaur, a film about dinosaurs cloned from chickens...or something like that.  The next year, this film came out.  The problem was that it was not released with another Park film, which did not come until 1997.  Oops.  Along with the third film, this one did not get as much attention as the first one did.  For those who haven't seen the first film, here's a quick summary: people made dinosaurs, dinosaurs killed people and some other people killed the dinosaurs.  That's pretty much all you need to know for my review of...

The film begins with a bunch of people working on a military base of some sorts.  A pair of teens have wandered off, while another man is checking out some wiring.  Evidently, something has been messing up the wiring and they need to call in a proper repair team.  The man discovers the kids in a storeroom full of dynamite (try locking that properly next time, guys!) and chases them off.  One of them turns out to be a kid that is kept in his care, although his relation to him is not exactly made clear.  Another random guy- he's not named all that clearly- shows the kid how to work one of the moving vehicles...which is not exactly in FICA code!  Oh well, it won't come up later, I'm sure.  That night, a mysterious cameraman...I mean, monster attacks the people and kills all of them save for the teen.  Hey Roger, this is Carnosaur 2- you can go ahead and show us the dinosaurs.  This is not like Jaws where it's all about the suspense.  Considering this is the sequel and you put a T-Rex on your DVD cover, I think you can commit!  A bit later, a group of random guys (including character actors John Savage and Miguel A. Nunez Jr) are hired by a bean-counter to go fix up a base.  Gee, which one is that?!?

The trip goes pretty smoothly, but the new boss is very secretive about things.  What's in the base- nothing!  What's down there- nothing!  What's 4 + 2- go ask your Union!  They also rediscover the same stuff we were shown before- hurray for filler!  Finally, some new stuff happens as the dinosaurs show up and wreak some havoc.  They take out the tech guy (Nunez)- what will M. Bison do without you?!?- the eye-patch, wearing Lieutenant and the tough, but gritty female helicopter pilot.  The whole thing is a bit confusing as the beasts appear to attack them on the lower deck and at the center one.  The odd thing is that they hide out in this area later...for some reason.  Oh and a dinosaur opened a helicopter door, closed it and managed to hide in it in case a person came in.  I can only extend logic so far...even in the sequel to a film about dinosaurs that came from chickens.  Yeah, I like to mention that part.  Incidentally, our heroes find the kid in a closet, since the things can open doors, but not those doors.  He's also sort of a dick for not warning them about the P.O.V. dinosaurs, but I guess you can blame shock.  Douche.

Unfortunately, being surrounded by dinosaurs is the high-point of their day.  They set a bunch of dynamite in the hallways to kill the monsters, but they learn to disarm the traps.  You want to explain that movie?  No?  Alright.  Incidentally, the base is a nuclear waste/weapon dump site.  It's a bit funny to watch this now, since the USA just signed a treaty to get rid of most of our nukes- for real this time!  After this, they try to escape via the elevator, but the only other woman gets killed via the made-up hole in the top of the elevator.  With only a few of them left, they decide to set the whole place to blow and seal in the nuclear waste before everything goes bad.  Naturally, they split up and the non-essential characters die.  No, not the Asshole Guy and the Guy I'm Supposed to Hate- I wanted them to live!  During an attack, our hero falls three stories onto a pile of pipes, but lives.  The kid rushes for help and finds a rescue helicopter from the Department of Energy.  Underrated Governmental Department my ass!  The helicopter pilot is...Michael James MacDonald from MadTV?  Stop showing up in my shitty '90s horror films, guy!  The big finale involves a T-Rex showing up and battling the teen in- wait for it- the giant piece of equipment from before.  After a several minute fight, the last two minutes counts down and they escape.

Yeah, this is not a good movie. It has a simple premise, but doesn't quite know what to do with it.  The idea of people trapped in a dark building full of monsters is a well-worn premise.  You may have heard of it when it was called Alien!  Seriously though, the movie is pretty damn low-budget and silly.  The main dinosaurs are a bunch of raptors- gee, I wonder why- but they never really move in full-frame.  I don't expect this to look like Jurassic Park, but I do expect you to try!  Seriously, these puppets are more tightly-framed and carefully-shot than the area around Hugh Laurie's bald spot on House!  We finally get a real dinosaur in the very end, but he too is mostly shot at odd, close-up angles.  He eventually gets shown in full-frame, but the puppeteer and miniature work is pretty damn shoddy.  Never mind that the whole finale is built around a blatant rip-off of the finale of Aliens!  That said, fans of cheesy films can get some good stuff out of this.  Everyone you get is a pretty flat cliche and played in a really silly way.  It's not intentional comedy, but it does have a certain charm.  Stupid dinosaurs, stupid people and an even dumber government- joy.

Up next, a full week of Full Moon features come up for review.  First up, a film that *nearly* shares the title of a really bad, but older film.  Stay tuned...