Carnosaur 2 (1995)

You know I haven’t had enough Roger Corman here at the site, so I figured that I’d review a movie that he produced while running New Horizon Pictures in the nineties. This is a sequel to the earlier movie that manages to “homage” both Jurassic Park as well as Aliens. I call this a two for one.

This movie wastes no time getting to the good stuff. We have a couple minutes establishing the facility as a government run uranium mine. Some kids get up to mischief and find a bunch of dynamite, this is important later, and then all hell breaks loose as some dinosaurs start munching on the staff. How did they get there? Well don’t worry because that will eventually be explained.

Then we are introduced to our main cast of experts sent in to repair and secure the facility that isn’t responding to radio calls. They arrive in time to find everyone dead with the exception of one teenage boy who our hero ends up bonding with. There is a company man who makes things complicated by telling them certain areas are off limits and trying to cover up what is happening. Eventually of course they run into the dinosaurs and do battle with them. Oh and because of the damage done during the fights they find out that the entire facility is going to explode. This is both good and bad as they need to get out of the place before it goes boom, but if they can trap the dinosaurs in when it does problem solved! Luckily, the kid knows where the dynamite is. I told you that would be important later.

Okay this might be the most blatant and amusing rip off movies to come out in the eighties or nineties. First off, the creatures are cloned dinosaurs that were recovered from the facility in the first movie. Cloned dinosaurs that hatch out of eggs… sound familiar? Very Jurassic Park, but that isn’t even the most fun. While featuring dinosaurs Carnosaur 2 clearly has taken inspiration from Aliens. We get the teenage survivor bonding with one of the rescuers, the team being dropped in to investigate, and the company man causing trouble.

I’m sure that we can all think of examples from other movies that use these very same plot devices but there are scenes lifted right out of the movie as well. You have a bit where the pilot to the helicopter, their way to leave the facility, taking off only to be killed by a dinosaur that hid behind her thus causing a crash. We even get a bit where a couple of characters are stuck and being closed in on from all directions by the dinosaurs that decide to blow themselves up rather than be taken. Hell, you even have an actor playing a character named Monk that is doing his best Bill Paxton impression! Clearly Carnosaur 2 isn’t the most original of movies.

Okay... does this not seem familiar to you?

Now with all that said I will say that the movie is a lot of fun in a turn your brain off sort of way. The action kicks off quickly and never slows down much. Sure, things are a bit cheesy at times but there is a fun vibe that kept me interested. The movie isn’t terribly long clocking in at a brisk eighty-three minutes which helps a lot with the pacing. The cast is solid and includes genre favorite Miguel Nunez as well as John Savage, Don Stroud, and Cliff De Young. You might not recognize all these names, but I promise you’ll remember them from other movies and television shows.

The creatures were created by John Beuchler with some of the props and even a few scenes being reused from the earlier film. I was very impressed with the creature design and the fact that they used puppets to bring the creatures to life. Some of the miniature work can be rough, but for a low budget nineties flick it is good enough. The kills are a bit tame with the best gags being an arm getting torn off and some guts being munched. It seems that they used most of the budget on the creature design and I’m okay with that.

Carnosaur 2 isn’t a good movie, but it is a fun one. I will always have a place in my collection for a goofy monster movie and that is what this flick is. If you are looking to kick back and watch something stupid, then I highly recommend it.

Ó Copyright 2020 John Shatzer