The Invisible Raptor

This was a film that I heard about from FrightFest over in the United Kingdom. It went on a list of films to check out. Now I got to see this as the first film to start day 3 at Nightmares Film Festival. I'll preface here that I'm not always the biggest comedy/horror film, but since this one had gotten positive buzz from podcasters, I was intrigued.

Synopsis: an amusement park paleontologist and a hapless security guard team up to stop an invisible raptor from wreaking havoc on their small town.

We start in a laboratory. William Walsh (Sean Astin) works on an experiment with John Sykes (Bobby Gilchrist). There is a raptor that is in a cage. They're trying to gauge if it is learning through a computer game. What complicates things here is that it is invisible. It gets the question correct and meat is given as a reward. We see that this raptor is smarter than we realize. It gets free, killing William and escaping with John.

The movie then shifts over to Dino World. What is funny here is that it is inspired by Jurassic Park. This version is cheesier though. Dr. Grant Walker (Mike Capes) is giving a presentation on raptors. It is during this that we meet Elliot Kintner, his mom Debra (J. J. Nolan) as well as Amber (Caitlin McHugh). Grant has history with her and he embarrasses himself with a dance. He does this with Deniel Denielson (David Shackelford). He is the security guard, but also doubles as an actor inside of a dinosaur suit.

Grant realizes there is something wrong when they can't find Denny's dog. There is blood, but no sign of it. There is a footprint that matches one from a raptor. This takes Grant to the local police, Sheriff Grimley (Richard Riehle) and Deputy Carlyle (Dave Theune), who don't believe him. It is an outrageous idea with no proof.

Elliot is the next victim, along with a chicken stand belonging to Henrietta McCluckskey (Sandy Martin). The deaths pile up and Amber is attacked, making her believe Grant. It is a fight for survival against the perfect killing machine that we can't even see.

That is where I'll leave my recap and introduction to the characters. I'll then bring back up here how I'm not the biggest comedy/horror fan. What I'll say here is that this was a fun film to watch with a crowd. The premises are outrageous and I believe I read it was budgetary. They didn't have the money to make the raptor look good, so they went over the top and it works. This also features good writing with references and callbacks. Just wanted to give that credit here.

Now this doesn't have the deepest story, but it doesn't need it. It is riffing on Jurassic Park. Our lead character is a paleontologist and he's Dr. Grant. He made a discovery and then was screwed out of the fame and money that came with it. The guy who stole it owns the corporation that is behind this experiment. Since Steven Spielberg directed that classic, this refers to different things from his career. This has Jaws with Elliot Kintner getting attacked. How they track the dinosaur also harkens back. Another reference that doesn't associate with Spielberg is the exploding arrow, which is a callback to Rambo. Seeing different things like this sprinkled throughout made me smile.

What I was also glad to see was that this doesn't shy away from the horror. There are bloody deaths as people get torn apart. I'll pull in filmmaking here to say that I'm glad they went practical with as much of the gore as they could. There was CGI used in different places as well, but that was mostly things that I don't know if there was any other way that they could do it. I'll also say that the cinematography was good. They frame things well to bring to life that there's an invisible creature. Having dust kick up, things stuck to it or similar ways, which was impressive there as well. They also did good things with the sound design.

Now since this is an outrageous premise, I do love that there is comedy through things that are said. It can be absurd at times, as you may expect. These people are playing this straight though. That is tough so I'll credit that first. Capes feels like he's trying to be Ryan Reynolds and it oddly works here. There is sarcasm to him, but the character is awkward so fit. Martin is hilarious in her role as this small business conspiracy theorist. Shackelford is so weird and I loved it. He is doing what he thinks is normal. McHugh is gorgeous. The film knows it but she also is one of the heroes so there is that. I'll also say that Astin, Gilchrist, Larry Hankin, Riehle, Theune and the rest of the cast rounded this out for what was needed.

In conclusion, this is a movie that on paper I should hate. It is absurd and at times, over the top. I'll say though that I just enjoyed my time here. It is wild in the best way possible, while also having the characters play it straight. The comedy comes from situations and characters. I thought this was well-made from the practical effects to the cinematography and framing. There is CGI but not much that could be done there without it. This won't be for everyone. Just shutting off your brain and rolling with it is fun.

My Rating: 6.5 out of 10.

A parodic love-letter to the films of Steven Spielberg, most notably Jurassic Park and Jaws (see if you can spot all of the references), The Invisible Raptor sees a small town menaced by a genetically-modified, invisible, prehistoric apex predator, which has escaped from a top secret scientific facility. Paleontologist/theme park employee Dr. Grant Walker (Mike Capes) realises the situation and, together with workmate Deniel 'Denny' Denielson (David Shackelford) and ex-flame Amber (Caitlin McHugh, he tries to track down the dinosaur.

The 'invisible' action figure used to promote The Invisible Raptor is a stroke of genius, far smarter than anything in the actual movie. As the title suggests, the film is intentionally dumb, but sadly the majority of the humour is incredibly weak, leaving it up to the cartoonish splatter to do the heavy lifting. The gore, when it happens (mostly in the second half of the film), is a lot of fun, a mixture of practical and CGI (an unnecessary evil when dealing with an invisible creature tearing people apart); the sight of people having their limbs removed by the titular dinosaur makes the film just about worthwhile, the effects being surprisingly effective for such a low budget production.

Also, this is the only film I know of that you can see an old woman in a chicken costume being rogered by an invisible dinosaur, so there's that!

5.5/10, rounded down to 5 for the runtime of almost two hours, which is waaay too long for this kind of nonsense.

In the middle of a special project, a group of scientists are dismayed when the subject of their experiments in the form of a special invisible dinosaur escapes and runs wild in a local town, forcing a series of wild locals to team together to stop the creature's bloodsoaked rampage.

This was a fairly fun if problematic feature. One of the bigger features here is the general setup that provides the kind of wild genre fare it feels quite engaged to provide. The idea of the dinosaur getting loose during the series of tests being conducted by a government agency trying to determine the effectiveness of such a weapon by the military and the ensuing rampage that occurs afterward makes for a solid enough starting point. It gets to the point about what the creature is, how intelligent it actually is, and how it gets free while also managing to give a great starting point for introducing the wild and wacky series of characters in the town where we get to meet the heroes at the Theme Park, the ex-flame, and the crazy local that believes their story who band together to use their skills to track the creature down. This gives the film a strong and intriguing starting point with a couple of great pieces to start the investigation into the creature. The second half here, featuring the series of encounters and confrontations with the creature and the crew trying to stop it, manages to bring together a lot of fun aspects. Going with some outright silly aspects involving the goofy tracking techniques, slapstick humor involving the personalities on display conflicting with each other, and a slew of random characters introduced not just to provide some laughs with their one-liners but their eventual death after encountering the creature, there's plenty of fun throughout here. The graphic kills being accomplished with stand-out sequences feature a lot to like, which is exactly the same as the effects used to bring the creature to life and interact with the environment to play up its invisible status, which all come together with the high-energy action on display here to make for a lot to like overall. There are some big problems here that hold it back. The main issue here is the fact that this one is such an ungodly length for the type of material present that it threatens to wear out its welcome rather early. There's little reason why this should be more than ninety minutes much less approach two hours the way this does, especially with the amount of characters or side tangents this goes on simply to get a laugh as that comes at the expense of dragging this one out far longer. Excessively going for the joke rather than trying to present the storyline more straightforwardly with so many scenes like the opening escape from the lab, the gags at the Theme Park, or the implications of the sheriff about what's really going on which all serve their appropriate laughs but just don't need to be as indulgent as they are. The other factor to be had with this one is the goofy premise never going for the kind of over-the-top wildness it seems set up to employ. The idea of the creature being invisible is a great gimmick that gets a lot of fun moments to shine but it soon grows so weary that you can't see the creature in full. Not knowing what it looks like or where the creature is comes off like a massive cheat to simply put it anywhere they want and the satisfaction of trying to make the scenes make sense is lost without the ability to tell what's going on that it happens simply because of the appearance of the creature kept under wraps for the gimmick to play out. It's somewhat underwhelming to keep getting denied and everything playing out the way it does is the main cause of that, holding this one back for what it is.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Language, Graphic Violence, and Brief Nudity.

This is horror comedy is unbelievably stupid. First of all, how did the raptor kept his body clean after all of those messy gratuitous slaughter? I guess the producer of this movie didn't expect people with high IQ would watch this ridiculous movie. They didn't think that someone would ask this kind of question. Blood didn't stick on it, while piss can make it seen way clearly? They must really think only Americans would watch this silly movie. LOL. Other than that obvious stupidity, the rest of the movie is pretty standard. Nothing stands out both in acting and in visual. It's a movie about a bloodthirsty dinosaur, so if you're gonna watch it, you should expect to see so much blood and gore. Make sure you can stomach them in large scale.

This movie is incredible campy and filled with crude language, idiotic dialog, asinine plot points, and the all time cheapest monster yet. On the plus side a couple of performances were somewhat worthwhile. Most all of the annoying unconvincing characters meet their end with the invisible raptor. The gore is surprisingly well done. The more you watch the more absurd it becomes. None of the characters feel the slightest bit authentic. The sound effects, audio and music was well done. Nobody can take any of this film seriously. And you will probably find it's an exercise in patience to watch all the way to the end.