Bad CGI
dinosaurs plus Lorenzo Lamas made this one a must see for me. As I’ve stated in
the past, I am a connoisseur of bad movies. This one had all the hallmarks of
being terrible, but in that cheesy fun way that makes it watchable. Before I go
any further you might have seen this one under its earlier and way cooler name,
Raptor Ranch.
 |
| aka. The Dinosaur Experiment |
We get to
see the crappy CGI right away as the movie opens with our main character’s Mom
getting eaten by a raptor. I respect the choice to let us know what we are
getting before we even meet the cast. We then get to meet the daughter, who is
being put into uncomfortable situations by her boss that runs the local gas
station/eatery called the Swine and Dine. There is also the creepy old science
guy that brings the dinosaurs to life, some College Bros, and Little Willy the
soul singer. Lamas makes an appearance as an FBI agent, but isn’t part of the
movie. I’ll explain that one later.
After the
characters are introduced the dinosaurs show up and start to eat them. The
kills are sort of played for laughs, but still we get a body count. Most of the
movie is just the characters running around being chased by different dinosaurs
that want to eat them. When they hide the dinosaurs start to eat each other
until there is just one left. I guess that might be why they went extinct. Who
knows? Eventually our main character, Abbi, fulfills her dream of singing in a
strip club. Yeah weird movie.
As for the
Lorenzo Lamas stuff there are some scenes with his FBI agent investigating the
chaos and killings. These were clearly shot at a different time and none of the
characters from the main plot or the extra stuff with Lamas cross paths. The
one time it could have where Abbi is being whisked away from the scene of the
dinosaur killings, she is covered with a jacket to protect her identity from
the press, aka. it was a stand in. They do a good job blending stuff together,
but it is pretty obvious if you are paying attention. There is a funny bit
where Abbi scoffs about how there aren’t any police in town, while we watch
Lamas’ character supposedly in the same town with a bunch of cops trying to
figure out what is happening!
 |
| Cheesy but fun! |
The
dinosaurs are brought to the screen with a combination of CGI and actual honest
to God rubber props! There are giant rubber heads smashing sets and I loved it!
The CGI is crappy, but I expected that so no big deal. The kills are very tame
and that did disappoint me a little. I had hoped for some limbs flying and
blood spraying. What we get is all CGI and even then they are stingy with the
red stuff. The cast is mediocre with the one highlight being the College Bro
that went to the Bill and Ted school of acting. He gets eaten early on so that
sucked.
The most
important thing I have to say about The Dinosaur Experiment is that I wasn’t
bored. This is a crappy movie that knows it is a crappy movie. The filmmakers
clearly had fun making it and I had fun watching it. I’ll never look at it
again, but it enjoyably killed ninety or so minutes. Mediocre but not horrible
is the best thing I can say about The Dinosaur Experiment aka. Raptor Ranch.
© Copyright 2018 John Shatzer
No comments:
Post a Comment