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Ever since Steven Spielberg adapted Michael Criction's iconic novel, Jurassic Park has remained the template for the dinosaur genre in film, with everything else either parodying or homaging the 1993 Oscar winner. Amidst the crowd, there have been a variety of movies with their tongues planted firmly in their cheeks, which Mike Capes and Johnny Wickham's The Invisible Raptor aims to be, and yet the seemingly self-aware feature finds itself way too bogged down by its underwhelming script.

The Invisible Raptor is a film directed by Mike Hermosa, in which a top-secret experiment unleashes a hyper-intelligent invisible raptor upon a neighborhood. A disgraced paleontologist, his ex-girlfriend, an unhinged security guard, and a local celebrity chicken farmer must unite to stop the creature's rampage.

Director  Mike HermosaRelease Date  December 6, 2024Writers  Johnny Wickham, Mike CapesCast  Kai To, Sam Skolnik, Chad Bullard, Tim Soergel, Bunny Levine, Grace Demarco, Linda Eve Miller, Bill Kottkamp,...

Those who grew up watching FX-heavy seriocomic mainstream creature features of the 1980s and ’90s may enjoy the nostalgic fun had at their expense in “The Invisible Raptor.” Viewers resistant to a landslide of scatological humor, however, may find the laughs pretty slim in this overlong, uninspired monster spoof. Director Mike Hermosa’s indie feature is enterprisingly polished, but the weak material provided by Mike Capes and Johnny Wickham’s screenplay might’ve worked better boiled down to the length of a “Funny or Die” short. After a run of genre festival gigs, it’s being launched by Well Go USA on limited screens and digital platforms Dec. 6.

At Tyler Corporation, a high-security lab holds top-secret results of genetic engineering: the titular velociraptor, which cannot be seen … or trusted. Developed for a murky “weaponization program,” it has brains as well as brawn, enough to outsmart the technicians present and...

The "Velociraptor Horror" bar is pretty low outside Universal’s Jurassic franchise. All Mike Hermosa's The Invisible Raptor had to outperform are titles like Area 407, Jim Wynorski's Raptor, or The VelociPastor. On that scale, The Invisible Raptor proves more competent than other prehysterical B-movies that you might find on the Syfy channel after midnight. It's selling what's on the tin — a goofy creature feature with an unseen raptor and more Jurassic Park references than Comic Con. If that sounds like brainless fun, you're (mostly) in luck!

Mike Capes stars as Dr. Grant Walker (red bandana and all), a disgraced paleontologist who now works for a dinosaur amusement park. He's down on his luck, but Dr. Walker jumps into action when an invisible velociraptor escapes its top-secret facility cage. With the help of DinoWorld's redneck security guard Deniel 'Denny' Denielson (David Shackelford) and his former lover Amber (Caitlin McHugh), Dr.

One clever way to bypass the steep time and financial costs of creature effects in horror, or perhaps more fittingly, horror-comedy, is to simply make the monster invisible. That novel approach drives The Invisible Raptor, a comedic horror film that lets a genetically enhanced yet imperceptible predator loose into the California suburbs. The Invisible Raptor wears its Jurassic Park influences proudly, with tongue planted firmly in cheek. From there, the horror-comedy only continues to riff on Steven Spielberg’s greatest hits. While that gets things off to a charming start, The Invisible Raptor struggles to reconcile its cruder impulses and stretches on the wacky dino hijinks a bit too long.

The first overt homage to Spielberg’s works comes via the opening sequence that introduces the top-secret lab that houses the genetically enhanced, hyper-intelligent, but unseen raptor. He’s monitored by a lab coat scientist played by The Goonies star Sean Astin,...

Stars: Mike Capes, David Shackelford, Sean Astin, Sandy Martin, Caitlin McHugh, Bobby Gilchrist, Larry Hankin, Bill Kottkamp | Written by Mike Capes, Johnny Wickham | Directed by Mike Hermosa

The Tyler Corporation has finally figured out how to engineer a prehistoric raptor genetically, but they didn’t stop there… they also made it invisible. Unfortunately for them, he’s a really smart invisible raptor. After easily breaking out of its enclosure, it’s now up to washed-up amusement park palaeontologist Dr Grant Walker and hapless loner Security Guard Denny Danielson to stop the predator before it wreaks havoc on the entire community of Spielburgh County. With the help of local celebrity chicken farmer Henrietta McCluckskey and Grant’s old flame Amber, they uncover the truth behind the mysterious apex predator.

Take Jurassic Park, ramp up the horror, film it on a low budget and make it independently and you have the Roger Corman-produced Carnosaur…...

Creature features come in all shapes and sizes, as the subgenre of horror lends itself to risks that other films can't take. Case in point is The Invisible Raptor, a film that's pretty self-explanatory but deceptively charming, with its clever jokes and overt gore. A paleontogist's quest to capture the title character is the perfect homage to classic creature features, from the Jaws franchise to Jurassic Park.

Cbr spoke with co-writer and star Mike Capes about what led to the creation of such a unique film. Capes shows the many deep and eye-opening layers of The Invisible Raptor, including how to make a character audiences can't see seem real. Plus, he delves into the many other movies that influenced this quirky adventure.

Cbr: There are many influences for The Invisible Raptor that are integrated into the movie wonderfully, including E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial and Jurassic Park. Were there other...

The Invisible Raptor is a comical tale of scientific arrogance gone awry, centering on the escape of a genetically produced, invisible velociraptor from a corporate lab. This apex predator (essentially a violent metaphor for unrestrained ambition) quickly terrorizes a small village, leaving behind headless bodies, incomprehensible wreckage, and, yes, piles of visible dino-poo.

Enter Dr. Grant Walker, a paleontologist whose once-promising career has been relegated to dino-rapping for children at an amusement park, and his odd partner, Denny Danielson, a hapless security guard with more grit than intelligence. Together, they form the mismatched duo that feels straight out of a 90s buddy comedy, equipped only with their wits and a common desire to save their separate lives.

But behind the surface of this absurd premise sits a very complex concept: the invisible opponent. From a cinematic standpoint, creating a monster that cannot be seen (but whose impact is felt viscerally...