Carnosaur (1993)

Recently I made the somewhat foolhardy decision to eat some very spicy Thai food. Catastrophically spicy. "I wasn't sitting properly for days afterwards" spicy. Why did I do it? I don't know. Perhaps it was the same kind of surge of bravery bordering on insanity that inspires one to slap on a wingsuit and buzz a mountain or punch a bear just to see what happens. Some things defy explanation.

In any case, as I sat there on the couch, eating my Thai food whilst sweating artillery shells and trying to light a cigarette with my tongue, I noticed that something odd had happened. On my computer screen, suddenly there appeared images of chickens killing people as they grew into horrendously fake looking dinosaurs. Women were giving birth to the things. One of the women ripped open her own stomach to pull it out the dinosaur/chicken and look at it before she died like she was Ellen Ripley or something. Then a dude fought a T-Rex with a skid-loader.

  This is the soooong written for the fight scene. He's trying to eeeeat Raphael Sbaaaaarge...

I thought at first it was merely a nightmarish hallucination brought on by the abundance of those little devil droppings the Asians like to call "chilies." Hell, it had Clint Howard in it. What was I supposed to think? But the next morning after I had managed to not die during the night, in my computer's browsing history was a thing called "Carnosaur." I saw the evidence, and my world collapsed.

 There was a Clint Howard movie worse than "House of The Dead?!" HOW LONG HAVE WE KNOWN?!?!

"Carnosaur" is an ultra-cheesy, low-budget splatter-fest executive produced by Roger Corman, and if you don't know who that is, you should probably not bother with this one. For sake of brevity, just imagine if, instead of really bad CGI, the Asylum did really bad practical effects. Like, imagine if in "Megashark vs. Giant Octopus," the monsters had been sock puppets in a bathtub. Then we're talking. Then again, if you don't know who Roger Corman is, odds are very great you have no idea what "Megashark vs. Giant Octopus" is, either.

It's...well it's this.

So when one is watching a Roger Corman produced film, it's really best to buckle down and accept the camp, lest you want to claw your eyes out after five minutes. The tricky thing about that though, at least for me, is that there exists a point where camp is fun, and a point where camp is boring and annoying. I can't really say "Carnosaur" was fun. Despite having a plot oddly reminiscent of many a PS1 video game, this story of dinosaurs and SCIENCE and dinosaurs made WITH SCIENCE isn't really that thrilling even with its high body count, which is all it's really good for. And despite it having infamy as a gore flick, the violence is really far too corny to get much enjoyment out of.

What's going on in "Carnosaur" is that a geneticist (Diane Ladd) is trying to wipe out humanity with a virus and replace them with dinosaurs, since that seems like a thing to do on a Tuesday. So when the dinosaurs (which are hatched from chicken eggs, FYI) start running amok in a small desert town, it's up to an annoying environmentalist (Jennifer Runyon) and a very annoyed night watchman (Raphael Sbarge) to save the world. Oh joyous day.

Of course there's the usual roundup of characters who exist only to be eaten, a la "Tremors" (a FAR superior B-grade monster series, by the way). There's some hippies who chain themselves to construction equipment in protest, only to be completely boned when a dinosaur shows up, which is admittedly pretty funny, there's some Mexicans, a bunch of horny teenagers and their third wheel drunk friend, a bunch of random scientists and Clint Howard as a hick, all of whom get eaten since that's how this movie rolls. But my favorite was Harrison Page as the sheriff, since he was the most useful of all of them and managed to be something of a badass. It's just too bad he didn't yell at the dinosaurs about not doing things by the book. He probably could have whipped them into shape.

HAMMEEEEEEEEEEEER!!!! *

He's also the only one really acting in this. Diane Ladd looks like she's embarrassed to be reading her lines (as is understandable), and while Raphael Sbarge proved many years later that he is a good voice-over actor as Kaiden Alenko in the "Mass Effect" series (!), here he's kind of slumming it. Although I can't fault him too much. Out of all the dialogue he has the best two lines are a cheeky reference to "Jurassic Park" and "I hate wildlife" as the one-liner at the climax of the final showdown. That's pretty weak sauce. And Jennifer Runyon, the person he has to act with for the majority, is the girl from "Ghostbusters" that Venkman was hitting on during the ESP experiment. I don't blame him for not bringing his A-game.

So the cast isn't very strong overall, but let's talk about special effects for a second. You know, when the creatures in your film made in 1993 aren't achieving the same level of believability as the the Gorn from "Star Trek" did in 1966, then perhaps you should consider other methods of film making. Yes, it does tend to make it funny in a hypothetically intentional way (that's a fine line), but in the visual department the dinosaurs in "Carnosaur" look less like a scientist's horrible experiment and more like Shari Lewis finally snapped and went on a rampage with some new friends she found after they ate everybody at Lambchop's place. And that's just distracting.

Listen, I won't fault anyone for liking "Carnosaur." I really won't. There is a definite market for this kind of movie. I'm just not one of them in this case. While I can handle low budget, personally for me, I don't much care for when a movie's ambitions overstep it's means. It's okay if you have a small budget and have to do cheap effects. That's fine. That's perfectly acceptable. But don't try and make a "Jurassic Park" knock-off with a budget the size of what that movie probably spent on the film stock it was printed on. Just...don't, honey. It's not worth it. Make a slasher movie instead.

Damn it, a slasher movie WITHOUT THE DINOSAURS!

Ugh. I'm never eating super hot Thai food again. Next thing you know I'll have Uwe Boll in my DVD collection.

Wait a minute.

::checks::

Crap.

That's...actually a pretty good trailer. That surprises me.

THE BOTTOM LINE - "Carnosaur" is basically on the same level as any random Asylum flick, just with bad practical effects instead of bad CGI. On the other hand, it's not without its charm. It's a movie that lends itself better to being a drinking game party event rather than a cheesy genre flick to throw on to unwind. I'm not a fan of it.

* Nobody will get that reference.

Demolition Man (1993)

Today's entry is a bit of a special one, for reasons that most likely only I care about. But I do care, so you'll have to indulge me, because this is my 100th entry for this blog! Huzzah! It's been quite the experiment thus far, and I'm looking forward to many hundreds more.

In thinking of what movie to do for this hundredth entry, I was a bit torn. Do I find an epically bad movie to rant about, or a good one? Finally, after days of debate, I decided to go the less painful route and throw in one of my favorite movies: "Demolition Man."

I love this movie to pieces. I love every hair on its adorable, machismo laden, goofy as hell head. It stars one of my favorite action stars, Sylvester Stallone in a performance that is both badass and hilariously silly. It's got funny one-liners, it's got likable characters who aren't annoying, it's got an awesomely over-the-top villain, it has thrilling action sequences and gratuitous abuse of running away from explosions in slow-motion while screaming "Uaaarrrrrgh!". It really encapsulates everything that was great about the 90's action movie into one big, cream-filled pastry of delight.

He's lucky. Most guys can't pull off a beret.

Of course the 80's were also rife with that stuff as well in their action movies, but for some reason the 90's just had a different feel to them. I think perhaps it's that more money was thrown into them in the 90's, which had a tendency to make them look more polished. Also since it wasn't the 80's anymore, the hair was a bit less unfortunate. I'm not sure if that has anything to do with the budget.

For those poor souls unfamiliar with "Demolition Man," the set up begins in the "near future" of 1996. Simon Phoenix, the insane terrorist played with gloriously manic WTFness by Wesley Snipes, is holding civilians hostage in his fortress. Then, from a helicopter, like a bungee-jumping God from the sky comes Stallone, playing John Spartan, a cop so macho that making buildings explode behind him in slow-motion is on his resume.

Seriously. It's listed right underneath screaming "PHOENIIIIIX!!!!"

They have a riveting battle which ends with Spartan apprehending Phoenix, but not before the building (of course) explodes, taking out all the hostages that Spartan thought had been moved. Phoenix is locked up for pretty much forever, but Spartan is also sentenced to a long prison term due to the 30-some counts of unintentional manslaughter. They are both put into a cyro-prison, and frozen.

In the 30 or so years they spend frozen, a truly bizarre, euphoric society devoid of all violence, bad things or even mild impoliteness rises. So when Phoenix gets dethawed for his parole hearing (which for some reason he gets before Spartan), and escapes to go on a killing spree, the police don't have the slightest clue on how to handle this maniac. After all, guns are only in museums, and the last MDK ("murder death kill") on record was more than 15 years ago. The only solution they can think of is to send the man who caught Phoenix the first time, so Spartan is released to bring this guy down, all while having to deal with the annoyingly charming society that he's found himself a part of.

One of the things I love most about "Demolition Man" is how funny it is. There is a lot of humor to be found in the bizarre formality and goody-two-shoes nature of this society, but there's also a lot of social satire going on as well which is quite funny. The only music is 30-second jingles from commercials, and it's very strange to see people singing along to the Oscar Mayer Hot Dog Song with the same joy as Wayne and Garth headbanging to Bohemian Rhapsody. Sex is only legal via virtual headset, and even kissing is taboo. Every restaurant is Taco Bell, as there was apparently a "Franchise War" in the future, of which TB was the only one left standing. It's all very Paul Verhoeven.

And the freaking Swear Machine. Best running gag ever. For seriously.

We are given a tour of this absurdly friendly and proper brave new world by Sandra Bullock, playing Huxley, a cop who is obsessed with the violent 90's, but is so far removed from it that she's really more of a fan-girl than a true expert. This is evident in her constant butchering of common sayings, such as "He really matched his meat. You really licked his ass!"

Yeah, it's juvenile, but those parts crack me up something awful. Stallone having to constantly correct her, growing ever more impatient as he does so is just hysterical to me. Sandra Bullock is also just plain adorable in her innocence coupled with possibly not-quite-earned bravado.

 And dang it, could she be more cute?

Also appearing is Denis Leary, who's most likely just there because they needed a guy who could rant, and a young Rob Schneider who not only manages to avoid being soul-punchingly annoying, but ends up delivering one of the best lines in the film: "We're police officers, we're not equipped to deal with this kind of violence!" Jessie Ventura is there also as one of Phoenix's thugs who doesn't have a single line, which while cool kind of sucks since it wastes him. Also if you don't blink you can also catch Jack Black as one of Denis Leary's crew.

But cameos aside, the guy who really steals the show is Wesley Snipes. This is one of the most gloriously over-the-top villainous performances I've ever seen. He's so wacky that he almost seems like a cartoon character in the best possible way, and at no point does it seem like he's taking anything seriously. He just wants to kill people. Phoenix actually has something of a Joker vibe about him, and it makes him a blast to watch.

"Wait a minute, this is the future. Where are all the phaser guns?"

But the thing that always makes or breaks a movie is the action. "Demolition Man" could have honestly used a few more action scenes, if you ask me, but the ones that are there are fun, full of bullets, explosions and mayhem, and hit pretty hard as you've got two great action stars in top form. And yes, it's easy to forget that fact, since today Stallone is shaped like a block of a dozen lumpy 2x4s nailed together and Snipes is currently trying to figure out how to pull an Andy Dufresne through a sewer pipe, back in the day these guys were A-list stars.

Ok, if you ask me they're still A-list, but my taste in film is reputed to be somewhat suspect. I'll never live down dropping an obscene amount of money on that VHS of "Yor: The Hunter from The Future" am I?

But who cares about that anyway, am I right? These movies aren't meant for anything more or less than being a fun time, and "Demolition Man" delivers like few other films can. It's one of my favorite 90's action movies, and if it isn't one of yours, you're incapable of appreciating the finer things in the "awesome" department. And then I just feel bad for you.

I mean seriously. What's your boggle?

"My boggle?"

THE BOTTOM LINE - Few things are as bad-ass as "Demolition Man." It's one of the defining action movies of the 90's, one of my favorites, and if you've never seen it, you need to do so immediately. If nothing else, you'll never look at Taco Bell the same way again. Very Highly Recommended.