For instance, this one is called "Tyrannosaurus Thursday." That doesn't mean it's a regular column- it's just something I came up with to reflect the movie itself and the day I'm putting the article out. By all accounts, it's really a "Monster Monday" article in disguise- I just didn't get it done on Monday, lol.
So, to be clear, I'll still be doing reviews of monster movies, action movies and horror and cult movies, as per usual. I'll just post them whenever, and under various titles, which should be pretty self-explanatory. Also as per usual, I'll let you know they've been posted in the first place via social media, i.e. Facebook, Twitter & Tumblr. If you don't follow me already in those places, be sure and do so.
Here are my addresses to that end:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mrgordo82
Twitter: https://twitter.com/rip_mr_gordo
Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/mrgordo82
Or you can just bookmark this site and check from time to time for new content. I'll be doing another director's oeuvre series soon as well- I was going to do John Carpenter, but given all that's going on, I thought David Cronenberg would be more apropos. I'll try and get to Carpenter eventually, knock on virtual wood. I'll also be doing a franchise review soon, and this one was already planned- it just also happened to be appropriate to the current times in which we live.
Finally, I've also got some more goodies coming up soon. It occurred to me that I could easily get the virus and that would possibly be that for me, so it's important to me that I leave a digital footprint that tells people something about who I am. To that end, I'm going to try and do some retrospective articles that get into some of my all-time favorite things, something I've never attempted before.
We're talking favorite movies, TV shows, books and music, quite possibly by subgenre, but maybe not. Needless to say, these will all be highly subjective- they're MY faves, not the ones I'm claiming are the best, period. I look forward to doing all of that, and hope you do, too. Now, on with the show...
After the massive success of Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park- which grossed over a billion dollars at the box office worldwide when all was said and done- perhaps needless to say, everyone else in Hollywood wanted a taste of those sweet dino-bucks. The legendary Roger Corman put out a trilogy of Carnosaur movies, as well as, of all things, a sexploitation flick called Dinosaur Island, the Asians and Americans alike rebooted Godzilla (1998's The Last Act of Godzilla and the US Godzilla remake), and later on, 2001's Raptor and the SyFy mainstays Raptor Island and Planet Raptor. There was even a family film called Theodore Rex, with Whoopi Goldberg.
Add to that dubious list 1994's Tammy & The T-Rex, arguably the nuttiest rip-off of them all. The sordid story begins when writer/director Stewart Raffill, perhaps best-known for his infamous E.T. rip-off Mac & Me, a notorious favorite of actor Paul Rudd (see here, if you want a good laugh), was approached by man who had procured, as one does, an animatronic T-Rex, which was bound for a Texas theme park in a few weeks. He suggested there might be a movie to be made with the robotic wonder, but only had access to it for a couple of weeks.
Not one to let such things stop him, Raffill hammered out a script in a week, with a little help from actor Gary Brockette (The Last Picture Show), whom he'd worked with on a number of films, including Mac. Knowing that the script was a bit iffy, he encouraged the cast he'd assembled to improvise their dialogue and even come up with new scenarios for the film that he and Brockette hadn't thought of, and the film was off and running.
All of the locations were within 25 minutes of Raffill's house. He hired a mix of actors he'd worked with previously and up-and-comers he knew he could get on the cheap, as he had to move fast. Fortunately for him, among them were several soon-to-be big stars early on in their careers that would go a long way towards keeping this film running on cable networks for years to come as their respective stars rose. The film was originally dubbed Tanny & The T-Rex before cooler heads prevailed and it was changed to Tammy because no one is named "Tanny"- that's just the sort of oddball name writers come up with when they're trying to be clever.
The story revolves around Tammy (Denise Richards), literally and figuratively, as she is the high school object of affection of both the jock, Michael (Paul Walker), and the thug Billy (George Pilgrim, Timemaster), Tammy's obsessive ex, the leader of a group of no-account hoodlums that are always stirring up trouble in town. When two girls that hang around Billy catch Michael sneaking into Tammy's house through the window, they contact Billy and he and his thugs come running.
The gang eventually track him down and beat him up and toss him in the trunk and dump him in an animal preserve, where the animals run loose. Michael barely escapes alive after a lion attack (!) and is rushed to the hospital, where he goes into a coma. There, he runs afoul of the crazy doctor Wachenstein (Terry Kiser), who declares him dead and steals his body to use in an insane experiment, in which his brain is put inside an animatronic dinosaur, to see if his consciousness can be transferred into another "body."
It works all too well, and the dino breaks loose and goes on a killing rampage, starting with some of the not-so-good doctor's team, then moving on to Billy and his crew. He noticeably leaves Tammy's GBF Byron (Theo Forsett, who's a hoot) unscathed and he and Tammy eventually puzzle out that the dino is possessed by Michael, thanks to a helpful game of charades! (I'd say you can't make this stuff up, and yet, someone did, so...)
Not long after, the doctor comes running to fetch his godless creation, and a chase ensues, as Tammy and Byron try to evade the cops and the doctor and find a new body for poor Michael. That's about it, but isn't that quite enough? 😂
In the leading role was a gorgeous, then-unknown young starlet by the name of Denise Richards, a few years before her big breakthrough role in the sci-fi cult classic Starship Troopers. Richards would go on to be ubiquitous in the late 90's/early 2000's, starring in such hits as the sexy noir-thriller Wild Things (if you're of a certain age, I'm betting you remember that one fondly), the James Bond offering The World is Not Enough (as a nuclear physicist!), the beauty queen contest satire Drop Dead Gorgeous, the slasher flick Valentine, the slasher spoof Scary Movie 3, the Blaxploitation spoof Undercover Brother (as "White She-Devil," which seems about right) and the popular Christmas-time fave Love, Actually.
After that, her career cooled a bit, but she still landed in the occasional hit, like the Tyler Perry vehicle, Madea's Witness Protection, or guest spots on TV shows like Friends, Spin City, Two and a Half Men, 30 Rock, 90210, Anger Management, Twisted, Jane the Virgin, Girlfriends' Guide to Divorce and the soap The Bold & The Beautiful. She's also a reality TV regular on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills and had her own show, Denise Richards: It's Complicated. You might also recall she was once married to the notorious Charlie Sheen- note the propensity of her appearances in his TV shows above- it did not end well.
As her boyfriend, Michael, there's a young Paul Walker, who, at the time, was best-known for his recurring role on the soap The Young & The Restless and for the cult horror favorite Monster in the Closet, which I'd love to review here sometime. He achieved modest success with films like Pleasantville, Varsity Blues, She's All That, The Skulls and Joy Ride, before hitting the big time with the enormously successful The Fast & The Furious franchise, of which he was a mainstay until the seventh entry, which was completed in the wake of his untimely death in 2013- ironically in a car accident.
The film also features some notable character actors that have been genre mainstays since time out of mind. The most high-profile of them is probably Terry Kiser, as the mad scientist-type, Dr. Wachenstein. Kiser is perhaps best-known as the titular character in the Weekend at Bernie's films, which is pretty amusing, seeing as his character is dead for most of the films! However, this role is only the tip of the iceberg, as, in addition to his considerable TV work, he also crops up in such cable mainstay movies like Looker, Six Pack, Friday the 13th, Part VII: The New Blood, Mannequin 2: On the Move (also directed by Raffill) and Into the Sun.
As his sexy side-chick, Helga, there's the tall drink of water, Ellen Dubin. Dubin is perhaps best-known for her role on the sci-fi cult TV fave Lexx (seen directly above), as well as a role in Earth: Final Conflict, from Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry. She also crops up in the cult classic Napoleon Dynamite, as well as movies like Abraxas, Guardian of the Universe and Dead Before Dawn, and guest shots on the TV shows Forever Knight, Highlander, Relic Hunter, Mutant X, The Dead Zone, as well as a leading role on The Collector.
If you watch B-movies from the 70's, 80's and 90's, you no doubt know George "Buck" Flower, even if you don't know him by name. Here, he plays Norville. He cropped up in everything from the notorious Ilsa series and the slasher favorites Criminally Insane (aka Crazy Fat Ethel) and Drive-In Massacre (which he also co-wrote and produced) in the 70's, much of John Carpenter's output in the 80's, including The Fog, Escape from New York, Starman and They Live, as well as Back to the Future (and the first sequel), Maniac Cop, Cheerleader Camp, Pumpkinhead, Sundown, Waxwork II, Munchie, Warlock: The Armageddon and Wishmaster.
Other familiar faces include John Franklin (aka "Isaac" from the Children of the Corn films and "Cousin Itt" in the Addams Family flicks) as Bobby, the bad doctor's assistant; Efren Ramirez (also from Napoleon Dynamite- he's the notorious "Pedro") in his feature film debut as the Pizza Guy; Ken Carpenter (Elves, Hellraiser III) as Neville; longtime character actor Sean Whalen (The People Under the Stairs, Twister, Idle Hands, Charlie's Angels, Halloween II, TV's Lost) as Weasel; and hottie Shevonne Durkin (Ghost in the Machine, Leprechaun 2) as Wendy.
When I first saw the movie back in the day on cable, I can't say it made much of an impression- in fact, I'm pretty sure I had it confused in my mind with the aforementioned Theodore Rex, a decidedly different kind of film. However, it certainly made one the second time around, and after a little digging, I found out why. It seems that the producers wanted a PG-13 so that the film could appeal to a wider audience, so a lot of the copious gore was cut out.
However, the second time I watched, this time on the Flix Network, it was in its uncut form, courtesy of the home video outfit Vinegar Syndrome, which should be a familiar name to my fellow cult film fans. For those who don't know, they're among those dedicated fans who get a hold of lesser known cult flicks and restore them and put them out on DVD and Blu-Ray for a whole new generation to enjoy. When they can get a hold of uncut footage, they use it, as was the case here. So, needless to say, be sure you get a copy of their version, as the original is extremely tame and heavily edited.
The end result is a a minor revelation and a lot of fun. There's lot of gory effects to behold, and many fun kill scenes, including the requisite scene of the dino biting off someone's head. The party gone wrong scene is a definite highlight, as is the bloody brain transplant that gets the dino up and running.
The film also has a great sense of humor, and, I might add, a fairly forward attitude towards its gay character. At a time when gay characters were still a source of ridicule, it forgoes a lot of that, with only the redneck characters cracking wise- the rest simply act as if it's not a big deal in the slightest, even the bully and the character's Sheriff father. That's pretty cool for the era, especially by today's lofty standards.
I went in expecting next to nothing and ended up having a blast. In retrospect, a lot of director Raffill's work is a lot of fun, including the Disney flick Napoleon & Samantha (featuring a young Jodie Foster and lots of big cats, long before Tiger King- that's the director above, casually swimming with one), the fondly-remembered sci-fi flicks The Philadelphia Experiment and The Ice Pirates, the decent sequel Mannequin 2, the action-thriller Passenger 57 (with Wesley Snipes- you might recall the much-quoted line: "Always bet on black"), the trashy-but-entertaining Survival Island (with the eye-popping Kelly Brook) and he still occasionally does silly variations of other movies, like the Pirates of the Caribbean-gone-wild antics of Sirens of the Caribbean (aka Bad Girl Island) and the Lake Placid knock-off Croc. He's no Scorsese, but hey, who is? I've seen worse resumes, is all I'm saying.
So, yeah, you could do a lot worse, if you enjoy a so-bad-it's-good monster movie, or if you wanted to see a horror-comedy version of a Jurassic Park-type movie. The dinosaur may look fake, but it's supposed to in this case, it being presented as the animatronic it is. But try and not laugh when it uses the phone, cuddles with his girl, lets her, um, ride him, and yes, tries to communicate via charades. Richards also does a sexy dance for her "man" at the end for good measure, which is, all things considered, a great way to end a film like this.
Beyond that, the gore effects, by horror favorite John Carl Buechler (the Re-Animator series, the Ghoulies movies, plus he's worked on many of the best-known franchises, including Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th) who also did the honors for the Carnosaur series, are pretty great. And, as silly as the script is, it has some genuinely funny moments and an overall great sense of humor- this is a film that's definitely in on the joke of how ridiculous it all is.
I really enjoyed it the second time around, which is more than I can say for the first. Usually, if I don't like a movie in the first place, it's rare for me to revisit it. But it happened to come on at a time I didn't have anything planned and I thought, what the hell? It's been a minute and I was in the mood for something silly. Mission accomplished. I don't regret it at all. In fact, I'm seriously thinking of buying it on Blu-Ray for the bonus material alone (which includes a commentary), once we're past our current situation and I can get back to work.
I say check it out, if you like this sort of thing, even if you didn't like it the first time around. Just be sure and get the uncut version, which runs a good six minutes longer than the original, which runs a mere 72 minutes. You'll know it's the right one if there's a lot of cussing early on and the brain transplant sequence is noticeably gory.
As I mentioned, it's running on Flix, as of this month, so you might be able to catch it there. It's worth seeking out if you like a good dino-gone-wild flick. 🐲😱
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