Posts tagged "Dinosaurs"

Almighty Thor – Discount Puppet Explosion 411 – Episode 110

It’s Discount Puppet Explosion 411! Two teams battle to review B-movies.

In this episode, Team Bastards deals with Thor. Not the big budget Thor that was boring and bland, but the low-rent Thor that has guns and whines all the time. But there’s dinosaurs! And giant dogs! And Richard Grieco! And some chick! Will Whiny Thor make Team Bastards declare war against Thursdays? Find out!

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Posted by Tars Tarkas - November 7, 2011 at 2:16 pm

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Planet Raptor: Raptor Island 2


Planet Raptor: Raptor Island 2

aka Raptor Island 2

2008
Directed by Gary Jones
Written by Steve Latshaw

Remember that SciFi Channel movie Raptor Island and how it was one of the worst SciFi Channel movies ever, the raptors just stood there and got shoot, and the whole thing was a complete mess? Well, it got a sequel! Don’t you feel your harsh criticisms of the original are now unjustified? Of course not, there is no reason for this sequel to exist. And yet it does. And it is set in space.

Yes, OUTER SPACE!

Well, Critters, Friday the 13th, and Leprechaun did it, so why not Raptor Island? That also gives you the excuse to rip off Aliens wholesale with the excuse it is in the future, thus it is a homage or something. So IN THE FUTURE Raptor will still be eating people, because that is what they do. And SciFi Channel will be airing Shark Attack 46: Megalodon in Space.

Director Gary Jones worked with Sam Raimi on two of the Evil Dead films, and has since become a genre director of his own right. Writer Steve Latshaw has been around for years, previously encounter here in The Curse of the Komodo. Neither of them have much to work with due to the limited budget, and are forced to resort to stock footage and abandoned towns. The film reeks of a small budget, it even has problems with the American flags on the uniforms. Sometimes the American flag has forty stars, and sometimes only 35! It looks like in the future America lost a few states, or they are in a state of quantum flux, probably due to more raptors. Schrödinger’s states.

Captain Mace Carter (Steven Bauer) – tough talking captain of a squad of marines sent to investigate a mysterious SOS on a planet. Steven Bauer played the evil foreign terrorist Azir in the previous film, who died, so this must be his great-great grandson who is now an American. Cultural assimilation for raptor destruction, in space. You have to admire a character named for Mace Windu and John Carter of Mars.
Dr. Anna Rogers (Vanessa Angel) – Her parents were killed in a war, so she became a scientist as well. Makes sense. Probably a distant descendant of the offspring of Mike and Linda Olsen from Raging Sharks, because I believe all SciFi Channel films take place in the same universe. A very terrifying universe.
Sgt. Jacqueline ‘Jack’ Moore (Musetta Vander) – The tough woman marine character you need in all Aliens ripoffs. You know she’s tough because she has a boy’s name. Musetta Vander was in such great films as Mansquito, Wild Wild West, and Mortal Kombat 2.
Dr. Tygon (Ted Raimi) – The leader of the creepy government scientists. You know he is evil because he is named after a hybrid animal, but the opposite of the one bred for their skills in magic. Ted Raimi is Sam Raimi’s brother and is in all of his films, but sometimes you got to pay for that new house, so here we are.
Sgt. Pappy Mathis (Peter Jason) – The old man marine who is tough and old and cool. He’s the most likeable character, so you might as well paint a target on his back. He gets raptor chomped, and then goes all suicide bomber on those space dinos. Peter Jason was also in the original Raptor Island, and used the accolades he got from these two movies to get a role in Transformers 2. He is also seen here in They Live.
Jose (???) – A bald trooper with one eyebrow and lots of old food. I don’t know who played him because the credits didn’t bother to tell anyone. Bad credits!
Alien Dude (Puppet) – He is an alien who looks like a mantis, and his race had the brilliant plan to use raptors as slaves and pets. This was after they had the idea to build and orphanage on a volcano and crash a meteor into their capital building to kill some termites. Not the brightest thinkers, and now all dead. Take that, space bugs!
Puppet Raptors (Puppet) – The Space Raptors come in two breeds – Puppet and CGI. Guess which one doesn’t look terrible? All the shots of the Puppet Raptor are pretty scary, but then he jumps out as a CGI mess and you wonder what they were thinking. Next time, go 100% puppet raptor with a marionette. It will still look better than…
CGI Raptors (CGI) – CGI Raptors look pretty terrible. Half of the time they are purple, but at least they aren’t as brain dead as the previous movie’s raptors, who stood still while being shot and just dropped dead. Now they drop dead whil walking forward. That is how Space Raptors are so spacey. Maybe if you are coked out of your brain to the point where you think you are in space, these effects will look good. Give me the Puppet Raptors!!
Commander Bakewell (Serban Celea) – Captain of the ship USS Santee, he spends most of the film hanging with Science Chief Romanov (Bart Sidles) trying to get in contact with the ground team, only to try to kill them when he does. Makes sense. As expected, Commander Bakewell makes the best brownies ever, but is a mortal enemy of Poppin Fresh!.


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Posted by Tars Tarkas - December 15, 2008 at 10:43 am

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One Million AC/DC

One Million AC/DC


1969
Starring
Susan Berkely as ???
Gary Ken as ???
Billy Wolf as ???
Sharon Wells as ???
Jack King as ???
Natasha as ???
Directed by Ed De Priest
Written by Ed Wood, Jr!!!! (as Akdon Telmig)

“This film meets requirements set forth in the code of the ADULT FILM PRODUCERS ASSOCIATION.” Too bad it doesn’t meet requirements set forth by GOOD FILMMAKING!

AC/DC is a detestable mess full of repulsive, greasy actors going at it like chimpanzees on Spanish fly. The incomparable One Million AC/DC is on a DVD with The Mighty Gorga, and probably because they both share a common T-Rex puppet used for bad special effects. The puppet, however, is the pinnacle of effects in AC/DC, as opposed to the low point in The Mighty Gorga. They get worse, much worse. The puppet isn’t even used half the time, otherwise it is a static plastic toy tyrannosaurs who moved by a hand just below the fake mountains. Now, bad special effects can be forgiven if there is a good story. There story here is just an excuse to get the cast naked so the audience can get off. Written by Akdon Telmig, who you might know better as Ed Wood, Jr.!!! Yes, after becoming a depressed alcoholic, Ed Wood was forced to write semi-adult films under pseudonyms. Besides this mess, he also wrote the cult classic about a Venus flytrap man The Revenge of Dr. X, which we’ll be reviewing the second we get a hold of a copy. The one redeeming factor on the film’s terrible pun title is you can make jokes about AC/DC songs: “He’s got big balls, And she’s got big balls, But we’ve got the biggest balls of them all” That would get old quick, so we won’t be doing it. The plot is around a tribe of cavepeople, and their sex, orgies, sacrifices, and winemaking. Exciting stuff, and historically accurate, just like the movies The Patriot and Braveheart.

Olaf (???) – Olaf is the hero of this piece, as so far as it has a hero character. Sounding like Peter Graves, Olaf yet retains a Eastern European name despite being one of the few actors without an European accent. He is the man of Marla, and uses the deadly bow and arrow to slay the ferocious T-Rex puppet/toy.
Banger (???) – Banger is the local artist for the tribe, instead of joining in the orgies all he does is just paint pictures, both of orgies and of random other things, including the sisters of fellow tribe members. He’s one of those cavemen stuck in the 1960s. Instead of happy little trees, it’s happy little sleaze. Helps invent the bow and arrow, thanks to drawing it on the wall.
Helga (???) – One day out picking fruit, sweet Helga was captured by The Gorilla, who did her “Gorilla Style” until she couldn’t get enough of his banana. Once you go gorilla you never go back.
The Gorilla (??? in a gorilla suit) – The horniest ape of the Stone Age, The Gorilla can only quench his throbbing thirst for flesh by pinching a local blonde cavegirl and using her for all his crazed apelust needs.
Chief Jabba (???) – I’m not sure the character name for this ode to gluttony, but Chief Jabba fits nicely. The head of our tribe of horny, girl-sacrificing wine drinkers, Chief Jabba doesn’t do much but sit there, look upset, and shout a few words to announce a couple of major scene transitions. Probably ate the original tyrannosaurus special effects, forcing a last minute replacement of a dime store toy.
Marla (???) – Marla is Olaf’s woman, and she no longer wants him to associate with Luga, the evil blonde girl. She forbids Olaf from being with Luga during the Big Orgy. Provides moral support to Olaf in his quest to kill the T-Rex. Luga is less than thrilled with the prospect of losing some man-meat, so they tussle.
The T-Rex (A puppet and a toy) – Last seen in The Mighty Gorga, crappy T-Rex puppet is back, this time to harass some sex-crazed cavepeople! As an added bonus, T-Rex is played in long shots by a immobile toy wiggled by a stagehand. For those of you feeling things couldn’t possibly get worse than the Gorga footage, you are sadly mistaken. T-Rex is killed by Olaf and his bow and arrow.


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Posted by Tars Tarkas - February 19, 2007 at 11:00 pm

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The Mighty Gorga

The Mighty Gorga


1969
Starring
Anthony Eisley as Mark Remington
Megan Timothy as April Adams
Scott Brady as Dan Morgan
Kent Taylor as Tonga Jack Adams
Bruce Kimball as The Witch Doctor/Mort the Clown
Lee Parrish as George
Greydon Clark as Charlie the Elephant ticket seller
Directed by David L. Hewitt

One of the worst rip-offs of King Kong ever, even worse than Queen Kong (which is an epic chore to sit through itself), this masterpiece of horrible filmmaking sinks below the chum of the crap, a benchmark that is not easily passed by those trying to create a worse giant gorilla film. Sure, that genre has some terrible entries: the aforementioned Queen Kong, King Kong Escapes (though I like this one), the Mighty Joe Young remake, A*P*E, the upcoming Kinky Kong, and the classic porn masterpiece King Dong. Giant ape movies will be with us forever, and some of them go on forever like the Peter Jackson version of King Kong. The Mighty Gorga is mercifully short, the best feature of the entire film.

Mark Remington (Anthony Eisley) - Head of the Circus. Almost out of money, except the large amount of cash he blows on an ill-informed mission to Africa to capture a giant gorilla he’s only heard about third handedly. But that’s what you do when you are the White Male Stereotype Guy!
April Adams (Megan Timothy) – Runs an exotic animal supply house in Africa that her missing father owned. She somehow picked up a British accent despite her father having no such feature.
Dan Morgan (Scott Brady) – The evil exotic animal supplier. Bought the bank not to try to foreclose on April’s place, but is foiled by Mark. Hunts after their party, wrongly assuming they are searching for treasure. Squashed by Gorga. Morgan must be a protege of Ross from the Catching Trouble short.
Tonga Jack Adams (Kent Taylor) – April’s daddy, missing famous explorer who shows up in exactly the place Mark and April go, because that’s convenient for the plot.
Arnold Shye (Gary Kent) – Agent from Consolidated Circus Consortium, the Ringling Bros/Barnum and Bailey of its day. Gobbling up all the smaller circuses to create a monopoly and control the market on bearded ladies and trapezes. Eventually killed by Cirque du Soleil secret agents during the Second Circus War.
George (Lee Parrish) – An employee of April, speaks good English as a joke in the film explains to us. The best character in the film, so of course they kill him off, as he was acting while Black. Jerks! Shot by Morgan while attempting to save everyone.
The Witch Doctor (Bruce Kimball) – Ting Tang Walla Walla Bing Bang!
Mighty Gorga (A reject Muppet) – If King Kong’s son had a sister, then the two of them mated, then that offspring self-fertilized, then the baby was put in a microwave for an hour or so, then smoked some crack, then maybe, just maybe, it would be as ridiculous as the Mighty Gorga.
The T-Rex (One of the world’s worst puppets) – Hey, remember in King Kong when King Kong fought a T-Rex? Well, this King Kong rip-off does, and so the screwed up Gorga puppet must fight an even ridiculously looking T-Rex. Hopefully the puppeteer’s hand wasn’t hurt during the rip-roaring prehistoric action! Killed by Gorga in the climatic battle of two of the world’s lamest monsters.

A woman is chained as sacrifice because she is the next victim of the Mighty Gorgo! As we all know how this works from the various King Kong films, the movie doesn’t even bother to explain what is going on. They then jump right into a circus, as lion taming happens during the opening credits, something every version of King Kong can’t claim to have, so that’s one point for The Mighty Gorga.

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Posted by Tars Tarkas - February 14, 2007 at 12:05 am

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Raptor Island


Raptor Island


2004
Starring
Lorenzo Lamas as Hacket
Steven Bauer as Azir
Hayley DuMond as Jamie Cole
Michael Cory Davis as Marcus
Peter Jason as The Captain

Sci-Fi Channel has aired some stinkers. I know that, you know that, TarsTarkas.NET knows that in spades. Even with some of the junk they air, most of the films have a few redeeming points, money shots, or one or two enjoyable scenes. Sometimes, such as Frankenfish, the movie is actually very enjoyable. Usually, it’s 90% junk. Once in a while, a movie comes along….a movie of such caliber….that 100% junk does not do it justice. Raptor Island is well over 8696843% junk, and still climbing. You can take that to the bank, after all, I am a scientist. Much of the junk in Raptor Island is so bad there isn’t words to describe it. It’s terrible. Terrible. TERRIBLE! There is nothing redeeming about this film. From Lorenzo Lamas being out acted by rocks and trees, to CGI monsters so badly rendered a kid with crayolas would do better, to action sequences involving people standing still shooting while their targets stand still and take fire. You won’t believe the origin of the raptors. I’d rather watch the Toronto Raptors trapped on an island than see this film again. You couldn’t pay me to watch it again, and I’ve seen Manos two dozen times. There cannot possibly be a worse Sci-Fi Channel movie than this one. Read on, if you dare…



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Posted by Tars Tarkas - December 28, 2005 at 4:34 am

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