Dinosaures Story

I was only little when i first rented Prehysteria on video way back in the early 90's & this little cute fantasy comedy has stayed in my movie loving mind since then.

I'm 38 now & just revisited this old school gem & was so surprised by how well it holds up today. It's 2023 now & this relatively low-budget family B-movie that went direct-to-video is as good and as much fun as anything that's come out lately. There's a magic to those old flicks we grew up watching & loving, there's no CGI, just old fashioned practical effects & puppetry & awesome stop-motion. Legendary B-movie producer & director Charles Band was behind this movie & many other's i grew up watching such as Puppet Master 1&2, Troll, Ghoulies Trilogy, Demonic Toys, Robot Jox, Dolls & Prehysteria. Charles Band had that awesome Full Moon features label that released tons of fun, fantasy & horror B-movies direct-to-video in my local Blockbuster. Prehysteria is a fun little light-hearted family Comedy that's full of fantasy & awesome miniature Dinosaurs. This gem has plenty of heart & that 90's innocence that's lost today. Not only is Prehysteria a nice bit of Nostalgia entertainment it's also a lovely piece of Escapism to a much better time.

A typical all American father & his two kids, a lonely young boy (the kid from Schwarzenegger's Last Action Hero) & his rebellious teenage sister live in a secluded farmhouse (like in Critters) & accidentally bring home a bunch of magical ancient Dinosaurs eggs. The magical eggs are from an expedition from an ancient underground tomb in an ancient jungle & taken by a collector of rare oddities. The collector & stealer of the eggs is played by the underrated & hilarious Full Moon Films regular STEPHEN LEE.

Stephen Lee was a funny likeable comic actor that i grew up watching in greats like Dolls & Robocop 2 & Ghoulies Go To College, he was a comic genius similar to the likes of Dan Aykroyd or James Belushi or John Candy, but never made it as big. Stephen Lee is the sort-of villain of this family gem, he's all about the money that these mini mutant Dinosaurs can get him & he's a hilariously silly character & a joy to watch as he wants those dinos back from the family. Of course the family love the little creatures & want to protect them from Stephen Lees greedy collector Rico Sarno.

Charles Band directed this gem from his family entertainment sub-label MoonBeam Entertainment.

The fx are wonderful & take you right back the fun & fantasy of being a kid with a wondering imagination.

It was so nice revisiting this feel good flick & remembering why i loved it so much as a kid. It was a hit of home video & i loved it.

Also the movie has a lovely playful music score by Charles Band's brother Richard, the guy is great & scored most of the Classic's from Full Moon Films like Demonic Toys & Puppet Master & Dolls for an example.

All in all Prehysteria is a lovely, sweet light-hearted family adventure that's full of fantasy & fun.

In one sense, I kind of liked this movie because of a 'mindless', positive atmosphere it sort of conveys. I had a problem with an aspect of the plot, but more about that later. First, the characters were a little goofy and one dimensional. The 'good people' had similar physical and character traits and the 'bad people' had similar physical and character traits ... hmmm. The basic storyline was OK (pretty simple and standard) - nothing too exciting or objectionable. The main attraction was, of course, the miniature dinosaurs - kind of a nice fantasy element to have. However, they had a very minimal presence in the movie.

Outside of that, the movie kept a brisk pace and didn't get too bogged down in any one place. I liked this about the movie.

The problem I had with the plot had to do with the the idea of "stealing". I think this movie may not have been thought out enough - something's wrong especially if this is a kid's movie. I'll keep the next sentence abstract to not be a spoiler (skip it if you're worried). The 'good guys' do some stealing and they don't have the same info the audience has - so it's just stealing and that's kind of a bad thing for a kid's movie.

Overall, if you have kids, because of a questionable plot aspect I'd consider passing. However, this whole movie is pretty low key anyway so it may not matter. Pass this one if you have any other interesting choices.

Moonbeam is interesting because with it Band finally admits the childish nature of his comic booky stories and his trademark whimsical tone, now without the irruption of sex and violence present in the average Full Moon outing.

A nauseating sitcom family dynamic is at the center of the picture, injected with the derivative dilemmas of children's fiction, even with a trite and underdeveloped backstory of grief that sometimes comes up whenever the script requires it (this whole "missing parental figure" thing also troubled the child protagonist of The Seven Faces of Dr. Lao (1964), where the void was also filled by a showcase of special effects and stop motion). A charmingly naive fantasy tale done in a post-Spielberg/Dante era, with the rowdy spirit found in the tamest scenes from Gremlins (1984) but without the satirical perversion of childish iconography and subjects. Band's film maintains it's purity and childishness without allowing it to be contaminated by dreadful morbidness, grossness or violence of any kind, every punch and firearm shot is clean and harmless, every "adult" joke is safe and restrained, every conventionally attractive adult that's single falls in love with another one, and every piece falls into place without any problem or trouble. There's no place for verisimilitude in the childish fantasy.

The real stars are obviously the David Allen-made micro-beasts, who engage in the typical disastrous misadventures and cutesy little shenanigans these movies require. Dino-puppies extracted from the likes of Beethoven (1992) and its sequels. Perhaps one of the most interesting things is the way the Bands portray the dino-doggies, with a crushing ordinariness, their reveal occurs with the utmost cinematic casualness, from one shot to another, one cut it's all that's necessary to reveal them, as opposed to the typical Spielbergian procedures seen on Gremlins, where the search for a particular effect and emotion forced the direction to employ shots specifically constructed and timed to convey a certain feeling (the tilted and moody shots of the Gremlins hatching for example) but Band opts to dispose of all of that, never even accentuating an emotion. The reactions humans have to seeing the dinosaurs are no different. There's no true questioning of the little creatures aside from simply pointing out their strange appearance in the house. The small reptiles are shot and framed as simply another element of daily life, inhabiting the frame as naturally as any puppy or cat does. Never seen with strangeness or making them disturb the world created. There's no place for the questioning of the fantastical in the childish fantasy.

The old school model seems transported from the 50's and 60's, mostly untouched, perhaps out of the inability of father Band to adapt to the times, or perhaps the son's nostalgia is the one responsible for such backwardness. As with most of Band's catalog, the core is an old model that becomes slightly modified by the popular tropes of the time, but it's mostly undisturbed by modern sensibilities or worries.

Prehysteria has no objective other than purifying the children's film, while Jurassic Park (1993), Gremlins (1984) and Goonies (1985) pushed the limits of the subgenre, maturing and occasionally pouring a few drops of meanness and intensity into their stories, Band brought back naivety to it, a deliberate and shameless naivety, always conscious of it's tone and with total conviction to it, self conscious but not self deprecating, proud of an obsolete cinematic infantilism.

The best and most fitting start for Moonbeam.

If your wanting a movie that will inspire you and create new emotions....this is not the one. But it is good if you want to keep your small child occupied for a few hours. I didn't rent this for me to watch, but my 4 year old, and he liked it. I saw enough of it to know that the acting is bad and the jokes are lame, but I don't expect kids movies to be great works of art. I expected it to keep my little boy's attention long enough so I could watch the movie I wanted to see, and that it did. And he wanted to see it over again (5 day rental), so I can't trash it too bad.

If you are a six-year-old boy who's into dinosaurs, you will love this movie. If you are anybody else, you'll be rolling your eyes about every 15 seconds. If you want to start picking on things like the acting, the special effects, the dialogue, or the absence of a coherent plot that makes even the slightest amount of sense, you'll have plenty of material. If all you want is a safe dinosaur fantasy movie for your kid, it will do just fine. That said, there's a lot of kids' entertainment out there that's much smarter, and some of it is even bearable or enjoyable for adults. Unless your child is in an uncompromising dinosaur mood, you're probably better off looking for something else.