Carnosaur (1993) Review

     Good evening, ladies and gentlemen and welcome to another entry of Coffee With The Cynic's movie reviews.  I've been kinda dogging it on the movie reviews as of late and I wanted to get back into them but I wasn't entirely sure just what to review.  After asking some friends over Facebook, I have a solid list of suggestions to get through and we're starting with 1993's Carnosaur, starring Diane Ladd, Jennifer Runyon, Raphael Sbarge and Clint Howard.  The movie is about a scientist (Ladd) who is able to genetically recreate dinosaurs by modifying bird and reptile DNA only to have one get loose in the Nevada countryside.  Naturally, it starts racking up a huge body count and an an environmentalist (Runyon) and a night-man (Sbarge) get caught up in the middle of things.

     Much like that other dinosaur movie turning 25 years old this year, Carnosaur is based off of a novel, this one written by John Bronsan (under the pseudonym Harry Adam Knight).  I actually used to have the novel (and given how much it fetches for now, I hope I still have it) but I remember the novel is actually quite good and would recommend anyone read it if the opportunity presents itself.  The novel was published in 1984 but the film wouldn't be released until May 21, 1993.  The movie is quite different from the book and should I relocate a copy of the novel, I'll do a comparison of the two.  However, I will be going into specifics here so if you want to watch Carnosaur first, you can watch the full movie here on YouTube.  Consider that your spoiler warning.

This guy handles seeing a living dinosaur pretty calmly.  It doesn't last.

     Carnosaur had a budget of $850,000 and was produced by B-movie legend Roger Corman.  I'm telling you this just so you can adjust your expectations accordingly if you haven't seen it.  Is the movie good?  No, not really.  That means it's bad, right?  Well, not really.

     One of the more interesting things about Carnosaur is how it specifically labels what animals went into the DNA mix to create the dinosaurs (all, like, 4 of them you see onscreen, anyway) and at least of those behavioral traits is discussed in full.  When the rampaging Deinonychus gets large enough that it can start attacking people's heads, the characters discuss later that the victim's eyes have been ripped out, which sounds more in line with a bird than a bobcat.  So they're supporting the whole dinosaur/bird connection and since one of the bird DNA strands used was a vulture, that totally makes sense.

     To tell the truth, for a movie with such a low budget and tight time frame for production, the dinosaurs don't look too bad.   Honestly, they don't look great but given how nowadays most low budget dinosaurs tend to look like this, Carnosaur is actually a welcome relief because at least for the most part, I know the dinosaurs are actually on set interacting with something, whether it be the actors or on a miniature set.  The same can be said about the gore FX, to be honest.  At least it was all practical.

The full-body mini hand puppet of the T. Rex.  A full sized animatronic was also built for the movie.

     Are there problems with Carnosaur?  Hell yeah, there's problems with Carnosaur although some may say that these "problems" are part of the charm.  Remember the involvement of Roger Corman and the less than a million dollar budget so I don't want to sound too harsh on it.

     While I wouldn't necessarily say anyone here turns in a spectacular performance (not even Diane Ladd, who also happens to be Laura Dern's mother), it also certainly doesn't help that the script doesn't give them a whole lot to work with.  Any character motivations or relationships just seem to be there because the plot dictates that they need to be.  Runyon's Thrush and Sbarge's Doc befriend each other in this movie for no other reason other than Doc probably wants to slip Thrush his meat whistle and even then it's not spelled out.  There's also one part later where the sheriff (Harrison Page) goes out to investigate some screams in town after tending to his sick wife and daughters and he's all distraught like, "I'm all there is!  Come on out, I've got nothing to lose!  It's just you and me!"  I know that his wife and kids were shown to be sick earlier on but their deaths are never really shown or mentioned other than that.  It lingers on one of their faces with their eyes open but seeing as how they were still breathing, I figured they were still alive.  What were they sick with?  Well...

     Okay, so I know any movie dealing with recreating dinosaurs uses impossible science as a plot device to get the dinosaurs back into the modern world but Carnosaur might just take the cake.  Okay, so Diane Ladd thinks that human beings are just the worst (her words, not mine) and wants to give the planet back to the dinosaurs.  How?  By engineering an airborne virus that makes women fall ill with a fever and impregnate them with dinosaur embryos so then they lay eggs but passing an egg through the birth canal tears them apart from the inside, except for Ladd's character who gives birth to a dinosaur more akin to how John Hurt gave birth to a Xenomorph in Alien.  I am not making this up.  The movie starts off with chickens exploding by laying the dinosaur eggs but then as the movie progresses, you see at least two women die from this, neither of which are the sheriff's wife or daughters.  Naturally, the government gets wind of this virus effecting only females so they scramble to keep this outbreak contained before humanity's breeding capabilities are wiped out.

     I also noticed a flaw in Ladd's character's plan.  If you want to give the Earth back to the dinosaurs, fine but...where are the herbivores?  There are only two species shown in the movie, Deinonychus and Tyrannosaurus Rex.  Both are carnivores so if you're going to bring back the dinosaurs, shouldn't you be trying to breed other species too?  I know, I know, budget and all that but still, I couldn't help but think that trying to give the Earth back to the dinosaurs but only bringing back two species may not pan out well in the long run.

I mean, they can't snack on tree-huggers forever.

     In closing, Carnosaur may not be a particularly good movie but it isn't frustratingly bad or even so bad it's hilarious.  I actually respect Carnosaur for being as alright as it is.  These guys and gals were like, "Alright, we've got a very limited budget, a not so good script and a tight window of time to get this movie done but you know what?  We're going to make the best damn movie we can!"  With those circumstances, I think Carnosaur could've been much, much worse.  I don't think I'm going to remember much of the movie come next week but with that said, I don't feel like I wasted the 80 minute runtime revisiting it.  I'm giving Carnosaur the ranking of Indifferent.

Yeah, that happened...

     The movie went on to gross $1.8 million at the box office and was received pretty negatively, with Roger Ebert calling it the worst movie of 1993.  Despite all that, Carnosaur went on to have not one but two sequels and a spin-off.  The Carnosaur sequels are on YouTube as well so when I have time, I'll be giving them a revisit.  Until then, what do you think of Carnosaur?  Whether you're talking about the book or the movie, sound off in the comments below.  As always folks, thank you so much for reading and if you like what you see on this blog, you be sure to nudge that "Follow" button and stay cynical!

     -The Cynic