Killdozer (1974)

More made for T.V. movie mayhem here at the Horror Dude blog. Killdozer was an ABC movie of the week and features a decent cast. The idea is maybe a bit silly, but fun nonetheless. Time to see what happens when heavy equipment gets possessed by an alien and goes on a killing spree!

The movie opens in space where we see a meteor come crashing to Earth. It lands on a small island off the coast of Africa where it sits for an undetermined time. Said rock later gets hit when a bulldozer clearing ground for an oil company tries to move it. The rock glows and hums while it touches the equipment before it explodes, burning and eventually killing one of the workers. After that the bulldozer becomes possessed by some alien intelligence that was living in the meteor and turns into the Killdozer! The rest of the movie is it chasing the survivors around on the island for the sole purpose of murdering them in the most painful ways. Well okay it basically just runs you over, but that has to hurt!

This might be the most unique alien invasion movie that I’ve ever seen. It isn’t even certain that the creature possessing the Killdozer is intelligent. It doesn’t try and communicate and seems to just be homicidal for no reason. The way the opening is set up it seems to be an accident that the meteor arrived on Earth and ends up isolated on the island. I suppose it could just be really irritated to have landed in the middle of nowhere. Then again why would I spend time trying to figure out it’s motivations. I mean its Killdozer.

Maybe get out of the stuck Jeep and walk away?

This is an admittedly silly movie, but I love it! Sure, the victims of the Killdozer pretty much have to stand still for it to catch them and run them over. But hey there isn’t anyone driving it so that could be distracting enough to freeze people in place. Okay the idea and execution is completely cheesy. But it works because they don’t play it as a joke but are deadly serious. No one winks at the camera or nods at the audience. The cast is filled with decent actors with Clint Walker, Robert Urich, and Neville Brand standing out the most. Their performances certainly help to make the movie work.

A couple other observations from watching this one. First if you know the dozer can’t handle a certain grade perhaps you should find somewhere on the island that fits that description. Or better yet maybe a raft? Don’t think the Killdozer is aquatic. Second it is probably not a good idea to leave the bottle of booze with the unstable alcoholic who has spent hours talking about going for a swim. He might just try to do that and get “Killdozed”. 

This movie is full of logic loopholes and goofy situations. Most of the time that would annoy me and make me not like what I was watching. Perhaps it is nostalgia, but I like Killdozer. This was in heavy rotation on the late-night movie shows that I first caught the horror bug from. I suppose what I’m saying is that if you hate Killdozer you suck… but I also understand. It seems to be pretty easy to find so give it a shot and let me know what you think. As with most of the other movies that I’ve covered for the Made for T.V. marathon the link above will take you to the link on YouTube to watch it.

© Copyright 2018 John Shatzer