Carnosaur 2 (1995)

Movie fans usually scoff when they hear the words "direct to video", since a film would not fall into that category if its budget and production values were capitalized on by major studios, but sometimes a few of these little flicks can become hidden gems due to an experienced producer such as Roger Corman, and a cast that puts their heart and sweat into it regardless of its profit or notoriety. The sequel to the campy B-movie, "Carnosaur" is obviously inspired by the big box office hit sequels of yester-year such as "Aliens", Terminator 2, and "Predator 2". Creators use the technique of not introducing the identity of the creatures for the first third of the film, and the creature stalks its prey through corridors and ventilation ducts, disposing of the cast one by one in gory ways. This time, the head of US Defense, Cliff De Young hires a mercenary squad of hotheads to investigate electrical malfunctions at a classified military mining facility that happens to be inhabited by the prehistoric monstrosities that killed off the whole staff as a result of their shady genetic experiments and cover-up of nuclear weapons. Now the cast must either fight or become lunch. Sound familiar?By now you should know what to expect. The dinosaurs look just as plastic and fake as before, but an energetic cast of underrated character actors including John Savage, Don Stroud, and Rick Dean keep it lively and entertaining. Combined with some witty dialog and nice directorial touches, C2 should be a crowd-pleaser amongst B-movie genre fans thats up to par with if not better than its predecessor. Its followed by another sequel, Carnosaur 3: Primal Species, believe it or not.

Whereas the first was a Monster-on-the-loose in a small town kind of movie, this one is much more of a cramped low-lighted enclosed-space survival horror along the likes of the video game Dino Crises. To start off, I want to To start off, I want to make it clear that Aliens is one of my all-time favorite science fiction/horror movies, and this movie is Aliens. It's as if they took the exact same script but turned Ripley into a male, Newt into a male, set it at a facility in the desert instead of another planet, and replace the aliens with Raptors, and then you've got this movie. I am not kidding when I say it's the exact same movie as Aliens. Even some of the dialog is word for word the exact same. And you know what? I'm fine with that, because it ended up making for a damn entertaining movie. I always say that if you're going to rip something off, rip off something good.

I saw this movie late one night on the sixth (french) channel. Most of it was awful but there were still a few redeeming qualities to it. The actors were rather pathetic, typical dino fodder I'd say and all they did was swear and moan about the ugly lizards attacking them. But they were PROFESSIONAL dino fodder actors. Indeed, they were very entertaining when getting dismembered and chomped by the dinosaurs. The gory scenes were not bad either. The dinos, on the other hand looked cheap and stiff, for they were puppets!! Yes, puppets, my friends, shown in full view struggling on their stiff, fat legs to get at the actors. Luckily for them there is still the ambushing tactic, ideal when in an underground mining/scientific/whatsitsname facility. Some elements of the plot reminded me vaguely of Aliens though... Things I learned from this movie: -Plastic mattresses are quite common in underground whatitsname facilities, they are a life saving device for crumby actors falling from ludicrous heights. -We humans are so dumb we have forgotten what to do when attacked by a shuffling, fat velociraptor, which is, to run like hell or hide. -Cloned velociraptors and tyrannosaurs look nothing like their prehistoric ancestors who were lithe, mighty and sleek-looking. Clones are fat, stiff and fake-looking. -A tyrannosaur cannot smash through an elevator door, especially when this one is made of metal mesh. -Dinos are extremely annoyed by Wagner's music, especially Flight of the Walkiry. -Dinos can unrig a booby trap better than any old soldier. -A man being shaken around in a T-rex's maw looks a lot like a plastic dummy.

Carnosaur 2 (1995) D: Louis Morneau. John Savage, Cliff De Young, Don Stroud, Rick Dean, Ryan Thomas Johnson, Neith Hunter, Arabella Holzborg, Guy Boyd. Simply one of the worst films ever made, this cheap non-sequel to the Jurassic Park rip-off CARNOSAUR contains some of the worst dialogue ever uttered in a film, as well as another collection of cliched characters and scenes. This time, a top secret operations team of some kind enters a top-secret military installation to search for a missing crew. But surprise! They get trapped and battle against hungry, vicious, man-eating dinosaurs! They might as well have just called the film `2,' for there are about 2-minutes worth of dinosaurs in the entire film. What we get instead is a bunch of lousy acting and incredibly inept special effects when the dinosaurs actually do appear (Boy, do they look fake!). Laughably bad. RATING: 2 out of 10. Rated R for graphic violence and gore, grisly images, and profanity.