October 23, 2002

You have to worry when the scariest thing about the movie is stock footage of chickens.

Despite the films that I review on this website, I do have good taste in movies, but admittedly, I sometimes don't always pick the ripest tomatoes in the video store. How else would I have come across a rotten apple like Carnosaur. Why would I pick it in the first place? Well, sometimes you run across an underrated gem like Return of the Living Dead or Blind Fury, but too often I get fewer apples and more worms.

Carnosaur asks which came first? The chicken? The egg? The dinosaur embryo? Do you know? Do you care? Probably not and that's why you've probably been smart enough to avoid this turkey, a routine Roger Corman dinosaur epic that was rushed into release in 1993 to cash in on the advance publicity for Jurassic Park.

The difference between the two (make that MAJOR difference) is that the dinosaurs of Jurassic Park are a technological marvel, while the dinosaur hand puppets in Carnosaur are a techno-illogical exercise that only raises the question, "Are they serious?".

Ironically, Jurassic Park had Laura Dern in a standard performance while Carnosaur stars her mother Diane Ladd in one of those wonderfully offbeat mad scientist roles that could have gotten more attention in a better film. She plays Dr. Jane Tiptree, a genetic biologist working for Eunice Foods in their poultry division. She believes that the human being is that worst. We know this because she tells her assistant "Oh, the human being is the worst".

She is disgusted with what human beings are doing to this planet and thinks that it might be better served if dinosaurs ruled the earth once again. Her big idea: Destroy the human population by injecting dinosaur DNA into chicken eggs and milk and thus, women will give birth to baby dinosaurs (yeah, I know) which will create a race of dinosaurs which will soon hunt the human being into extinction. Sound like a dumb idea? Well, that's why we classify Dr. Tiptree as a mad scientist. See the connection?

All of her work, by the way, is done in one of those underground laboratories with lots of test tubes, hundreds of video monitors but very little money wasted on overhead lighting. Very little lighting because . . . well, because it looks creepy and stuff, I guess. The lab also contains one experiment that the good doctor keeps locked up, a dinosaur that she nurtures and keeps on a strict diet of insubordinate former employees.

Standing between the doctor and her would-be brilliant plan are two lovers: Gaiens, who has joined one of those Greenpeace-type treehugger groups and Thrush (yes, Thrush) the girl who initiated him. They are fodder for the plot, however because they both look young and pretty but they are quickly pushed aside to get to more dinosaur stuff.

Aside from the wicked experiment, the movie continually shifts focus to an escaped dinosaur that chows down on one hapless day-player after another including: A truck driver, a Mexican, three teenagers and a few other bite-sized extras just to give the creature a well-rounded meal of small-time actors.

The creature does not (initially) chow down on Sheriff Fowler who is the first to discover what Dr. Tiptree is up to. And for the sin of being nosey (and taking a supporting role) he gets one big dino-toenail in his stomach (ouch!)

One thing leads to another, one story thread after another is left hanging. And the last hour of the movie is spent in Dr.Tiptree's laboratory where we get a loooooooooooooong and drawout reexamination of the doctor's philosophies. While this is going on, our government closes in on her laboratory in those heavy enviro-suits quarantining pregnant women in tents while the top brass stands around and tries to figure out who is really in charge here. I would have asked the same at the script writing session.