Hey everybody… Jonathan Moody here for the last time this week. I’m excited to chat about this crazy movie. So it all came about when I asked Leila Toba if she would like to guest host this episode. She had been on a few episodes already so I assumed she would be excited for this one. And she was. She decided she would pick the 1993 Roger Corman-produced Killer Dino flick, “Carnosaur”… and she brought a long two of her friends: Sean and Brandon.
Here is the plot from IMDB:
A genetically manipulated and very hungry dinosaur escapes from a bioengineering company and wreaks havoc on the local desert town. A security guard and a girl environmentalist try to stop both it and the company’s doomsday bioweapon.
So pretty much that’s the story of Carnosaur. At the time it was made there was another little movie being made about killer dinosaurs… Jurassic Park. But it’s not like anyone has ever heard of that movie, right? Wait… you mean it was a big success and spawned lots of sequels. Well what about Carnosaur? 2 Sequels to it. Okay not bad for a little Dino movie.
As I said earlier it was produced by Roger Corman so you can expect some cheesiness and fun to it. It was also directed by two directors: Adam Simon who directed Brain Dead, Body Chemistry 2, and The American Nightmare, among others; and Darren Patrick Maloney who directed this as well as Andromina: The Pleasure Planet. It was written by Adam Simon and John Brosnan who also wrote Beyond Bedlam and Proteus.
The movie starred some pretty cool actors. Diane Ladd played Dr. Jane Tiptree. Diane has been in a lot of great movies including Chinatown, Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (Playing the infamous Flo), Wild at Heart, among many others. To have Diane in a Roger Corman produced film is fantastic. Raphael Sbarge played Doc . He was in the show Once Upon a Time and in Risky Business, among others.
There’s also Harrison Page who played Sheriff Fowler. He was in Lionheart (Which we will do on Indie Film Cafe at some point), The TV Series Sledgehammer, Quantum Leap, and many more. And there’s also Jennifer Runyon as Ann “Thrush”… Jennifer was in Ghostbusters (1984), Up The Creek, The In Crowd (1988), and many more. Not to mention this also had Clint Howard and Ned Bellamy in it. Clint is known for working on Corman productions including the 1979 film, “Rock N Roll High School”, which we just did for Patreon Only.
The only problem with this episode was that it had too many hiccups with zoom. There were times where Leila and her friends could not be heard all the way and sometimes when I even had to ask if they could repeat certain stuff. After a while I just kind of went with it. That’s the issue with zoom and internet issues all the time.
As for the movie to me it was pretty bad. I mean not a stinker, stinker-bad, but pretty damn bad. Especially with a company like Corman’s company: you would think that it could have been a bit better of a movie. The carnosaur looked silly but I guess that’s what’s to be expected in a movie like this. I’m so glad it did well enough where it made sequels tho. I have not seen the sequels. In fact this was the first time I watched this movie even.
Anyhow that’s pretty much it for this write up… The scores are now in: Since we had 4 people and only 3 people can score sadly Brandon had to sit out. Leila loved it a lot better and didn’t find it as stinky as the rest of us, giving it a 5. I gave it an 8.5, and Sean gave it and 8.5, making the Total Stink Score of 22, which is a Stinky Average of 7.3. This puts it on the Ladder of Stink next to Horror of the Blood Monsters, the only other 22 we have. Interesting.
Well that’s it for now – and that’s the last special guest one we did. From now on it’s just Jonathan or Paul doing the episodes. It was a thoughtful idea but I don’t think it worked as well. 3 episodes a month is clearly enough for us. Anyhoo… The Moo Cow is going to take over and tell you awesome people how you can find this movie and where and all that fun stuff. Take it away… Moo Cow…
Well, you can find the trailer HERE. Its pretty mooch all over the internet at this point, for free including YouTube, the Internet Archive, and its on Prime. For the DVD and VHS (yeah, it’s that old…) hie thee hither to Amazon. Re-sale market includes Alibris and Ebay. Ebay also has the Carnosaur Collection 3DVD box set, but it ain’t cheeeep. Its on Amazon too, but also pricy. But that’s for 3 stinky dino flicks, so that’s where the moolah goes. Cinematerial.com has a poster of the Carnosaur 1 and 2 posters smooshed together, which is a thing; udderwise there ain’t mooch schwag for this film out there. Plenty of dino stuff, but nut an honey for this moovie, or the franchise, I guess its kind of forgotten. Siskel and Ebert reviewed it back in the day, and it appears on Brandon’s Cult Movie Reviews. The Schlock Pit also does a write up worth checking out. JoBlo Horror Originals cowsiders it a Mockbuster, but I dunno about that, I just think its a stinky dino moovie :=8/
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