Carnosaur

Reading about Carnosaur, I was expecting a terribly cheap movie and for it to be blatantly derivative of the Steven Spielberg classic Jurassic Park. While far from a good movie, and certainly nowhere near as fun, thrilling or intense as Jurassic Park, I was expecting far worse than what I saw. Diane Ladd relishes her mad scientist, and this is one totally bonkers mad scientist, and the baby carnosaur is genuinely scary. Carnosaur is also gorier and bloodier than JP, and the gore is actually quite good and has moments where it is used inventively to the extent that you may be put off eating for some time after. Carnosaur is a very cheap-looking movie though, the sets lack colour and the camera work and editing lack finesse and cohesion. But I agree about the special effects and the animatronics on the dinosaurs faring worst in this regard, they are truly dreadful and definitely some of the worst dinosaur effects I've seen for any movie in my life. The score is not particularly rousing and has nothing that leaps out as memorable. It doesn't distract from what's going on as such but it just doesn't add anything either, it's just there and fails to make much of an impact. The script doesn't work either, nor does the story. The dialogue is stodgy, cheesy and overly-talky, while the story- not doing much with a decent if rather silly concept- apart from some inventive gory scenes is stripped of suspense, scenes that should scare can be unintentionally funny instead, the romantic plot line is mawkish and slows things down in the middle and the prehistoric rampage antics do get predictable quickly. The characters read of every cliché the writers could find and are poorly developed, no scratch that, the movie certainly knows what it tries to be which is good but while it does strive for some fun and scares(though not really succeeding) the characters are almost completely forgotten in the process. Of the acting only Ladd makes any kind of impression, the rest just sleepwalk through their roles and don't seem to care less about their characters' situations. Overall, could have been worse, especially considering what I'd read, but not a good movie. I recommend it partially for those who want a bit of silly fun without having to think too much, but for those who does know what to expect but still want to see some kind of quality put into it they may want to look elsewhere. 4/10 Bethany Cox

I saw this film when I was 8 years old. Even then I was able to laugh at it. It wasn't a good movie, that's for sure. But the fact that I remember this film for its sheer mockability, well that alone is worth something. Not good, in fact it's terrible. Watch it if you want to be able to sit there and laugh at it with your friends. It's enjoyable in that sense, and isn't that the whole point?

Well, what can I say? I'm a huge fan of b movies, so I've seen some great big piles in my life. I was going into this expecting a poorly-shot, bad-humor-filled, crappy-effect-infused, pox-ridden Corman romp of "Night of the Blood Beast" or "Wasp Woman" proportions. I was rather surprised, actually. The effects were nothing to write home about, but they weren't horrible. At least this was before CG was on the open market, so they stuck with practical effects (which, in my opinion, are underrated). The acting was par for the course, but I feel Diane Ladd did a pretty good "mad scientist" with Tiptree. Mainly Raphael Sbarge was a good washed-up drunk with Doc Smith. Some things made the movie a little tedious (the romantic plot between Thrush and Doc, Clint Howard's character, etc.) but I found this an overall enjoyable cheesy gore-ride of fun weirdness.

Watch if you are used to horrifically cheesy movies.

4/10

"Carnosaur" is a film that can probably blame its obviously low budget on it being a missed opportunity. This movie contains many good elements including a very wonderful performance by Academy Award-nominee Diane Ladd. About half of the time, this movie kept me entertained in its own unique way and the other half of the time I was bored to tears. Thus, I give it two stars out of four. Half and half. Sounds fair to me.

"Carnosaur" is loosely based on a novel by John Brosnan about a mad scientist (Diane Ladd) who is disgusted by the human race's destruction of the planet and plans to wipe it out with a killer virus while genetically engineering dinosaurs so that they can take over the planet once again.

I was really surprised that film critic Gene Siskel, who had given the Oscar-winning masterpiece "The Silence of the Lambs" (1991) a negative review found this movie appealing and gave it a marginally positive review. But now that I've actually seen the film, I can agree with him part way. I still give it a negative review, but I do see why he might have enjoyed it. First of all, like I mentioned earlier, Diane Ladd plays a terrific villain in this movie. Even though she was given some awfully poor lines to act on, she somehow managed to keep me interested and even a bit frightened whenever she was on the screen. I'll say this; she is a lot more interesting than the dinosaurs in this picture. Perhaps the reason "Carnosaur" was even made was to beat Steven Spielberg's "Jurassic Park" (1993) to the big screen and make a little cash, which it did despite negative reviews from both critics and audience members. The film was made on a low budget and you can tell by the bad acting (excluding Diane Ladd, of course) and the poor special effects. The dinosaurs are seldom convincing at all. They are portrayed using rubber puppets and even though they are shot at night, they do become revealing at times. Sometimes painfully revealing. I also felt that the amount of blood and gore used in this film was way overdone, but that is typical of films of this grade.

And there is also one major plot problem in this movie. If the Diane Ladd character wants to wipe out the human race, why not just create the virus and not even bother with the dinosaurs at all? Why go through all the trouble and risk being caught? Of course, the dinosaurs were thrown in one because of the novel source and two to get people interested in seeing the movie, but still it almost seems as though "Carnosaur" would have been better, at least more logical, if there were no dinosaurs in it at all. And it also doesn't make any sense that she only breeds carnivorous dinosaurs and no herbivores. There are some strangely appealing elements to "Carnosaur", much to my surprise, and there are some ludicrous and unbelievably poor elements, as anticipated. It is just too bad I wasn't surprised more while watching this movie. A few re-writes of the script and a slight ante in the budget would have done it wonders.

My all time 2nd worst movie that I've seen ( the 1st being freddy got fingered) I couldn't even get through this movie it was so bad. The death scenes with the dinos. The special effects made me blind for life. Then when you thought the movie from going from AWFUL TO EXTREMELY AWFUL, it goes a little bit further to HORRIBLY WRONG I'M DAMAGED FOR LIFE AWFUL, with a stupid sub-plot about a deadly virus. NO NO NO NO NO, I can't believe my eyes.