2010
D: Colin Ferguson
W: Russell J. Friedman & Tripp Reed
S: Steven Brand, Kirsty Mitchell & Raoul Trujillo
Unrated - 84 Minutes
Syfy
Taglines:
None
Alternate Titles:
Atak dinozaurów (Dinosaur Attack) Poland
"That is utterly horrifying."
-Wyatt
One of the things that I love the most about Syfy's original movies is that they all go for the gold. They don't worry about things like budget when they're writing their scripts, shooting for the stars and then worrying about everything else later. I would love to be a fly on the wall for some of these pitch meetings:
Syfy: "So you want to have re-animated dinosaur fossils run rampant through the countryside and town and wreck stuff?"
Colin Ferguson: "Well....yes."
Syfy: "Perfect! You're budget is $10,000. You will not have access to a special effects crew, so here's an IBM Compatible x286 with a slightly used voodoo graphics card. Also, it runs in DOS, so you'll probably need to get a manual off E-Bay to use it. The film is due in seven days. Good luck, kid!"
At least that's how I imagine it, anyway. The film itself is pure Syfy lunacy of the highest caliber. When the local university is encroaching on the land belonging to local Native Americans, a peaceful protest is put into effect. Unfortunately the protest is doing no good as papers have already been signed and the university now has legal rights to the land.
Sheriff Jake Roundtree is called to the scene and ends up quasi arresting his uncle, Dakota. Dakota is leading the charge, so to speak, against the university and please with Roundtree to help him stop them "the old way", whatever that means. It's at this point that Dakota drops the helpful bit of exposition that Jake's grandfather was a powerful medicine man and that someday he will have to acknowledge his heritage.
Long story short, Dakota (after trashing his kitschy roadside museum and giftshop) performs a ritual that has the unfortunate end result of reanimated dinosaur fossils. A T-Rex, a Raptor and a Pteranodon all come back to life and immediately start to wreck havoc. The first place that gets trashed belongs to comic relief, Wyatt. His trailer that contains the world's largest collection of light bulbs (!?) gets completely destroyed and he runs off into the woods, narrowly escaping becoming a dino-fossil chew toy.
Roundtree is seperated from his archaeologist (who actually, should be a paleontologist....but why split hairs?) wife, who just happens to now be dating the President of the University (how's THAT for convenient). Their daughter Savannah (played by Emilia Clarke, whom most of you probably know better as Daenerys Targaryen in Game of Thrones) is a bit of a rebel...running off with boys to frat parties and such.
It's a pretty straight forward creature feature flick. Dino-Fossils come to life, rampage and it's up to a Roundtree and Co. to save the day. Interestingly, the Dino-Fossils are a bit more difficult to contend with than you might think. They cannot be destroyed by natural means. After the Raptor is hit by Roundtree full force with his Jeep, the bones scatter everywhere.....and then magically put themselves back together. This leads to a cool twist in the third act when (MILD SPOILER) the T-Rex and the Pteranodon are both hit by rockets and their bones scatter and mix together. They then reform into a single T-Rexodon™ flying fossil and become even more dangerous.
Gore:
There's a little blood here and there, but nothing really to write home about.
T&A
Ha ha ha! Yeah..........no. This is a Syfy flick.
Creatures Featured:
For your money, you get a T-Rex, Raptor and Pteranodon fossils re-animated and come back to life to scare the bejesus out of unsuspecting folks. Also, as mentioned before, the T-Rex and Pteranodon end up merging together into a T-Rexodon™ monster fossil.
Final Thoughts:
I had quite a bit of fun with this one. It's completely and utterly absurd....but I can't shake the feeling that had this movie been made in 1987, given a metal soundtrack with the dino-fossils animated with stop motion animation....this one have been a cult classic. I could see this having a ridiculous giant clamshell box with insane artwork of a T-Rex fossil the size climbing up a skyscraper holding a scantily clad, well endowed blonde in it's clutches while the Pteranodon carried a semi-truck through the air. People are running and screaming on the streets below.
Final Rating:
Three out of Five Pizza Rolls
