Thursday, March 4, 2010

Dinosaurus! (1960)

Irvin Yeaworth's follow up to The Blob is a hilariously inappropriate mash up of Godzilla meets King Kong meets "Gilligan's Island". This son of a bitch, with it's endearingly lousy special effects and horrendously offensive view of women (and cavemen, I guess), was dated the moment if fell off the assembly line. Here's the story: An American engineer, while building a harbor off a tropical island using dynamite, uncovers a frozen Brontosaurus, Tyrannosaurus Rex, and a caveman. He leaves them in the care of his "best" man overnight while they thaw out (don't ask how they were found frozen in the first place), only they're struck by lightning and brought back to life. "Best" man is eaten in an egregiously unconvincing scene. Dinosaurs roam the island. T-rex eats people. Brontosaurus befriends little boy. Caveman acts like headhunter from Gilligan's Isle (in wide eyed goofiness only, not by the act of placing people in bubbling cauldron's filled with oversized veggies). Fuck man, I had a blast with this piece of shit.

This picture really doesn't do females many favors. The character of Betty Piper, and love interest for the American hero, exhibits many womanly qualities. First, she's a moron. Prone to motor boating in the vicinity of dynamite blasts and then diving into the water looking for month old canisters or some shit. Of course, this requires a man swimming out, risking his own hide, to rescue the dumb broad. Second, she assumes all cavemen to be maniacal rapists. After this particular neanderthal saves her dumb ass from the T-Rex, she tries to lull him to sleep with a caveman lullaby so that she can escape with her hide untapped. Personally, I think the guy deserved a nice hj for his troubles.

So, basically we got 3 prehistoric creatures roaming around a tropical island causing all sorts of mayhem. Eventually, the Brontosaurus, the caveman, the American, the little boy, and the woman (who screams helplessly in the background) team up to take on the Tyrannosaurus Rex. Things happen. People die. Some asshole native that thinks he owns the island (and subsequently the caveman apparently) might be killed under falling rocks. Lastly, we have the American, in a bucket loader, battling the T-Rex, a scene later homaged in the mini-dino (that's little dinosaurs, folks) classic Carnosaur. Speaking of homaged scenes, check out the T-Rex eying the busload of tourists (Jurassic Park). The effects are of the stop motion variety and so automatically earn the love of this reviewer. The stories a joke but, hell man, that's half the fun. Check this one out!

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