Raptor

Raptor

I saw this movie on the SciFi channel a few years ago, and I thought it was strange that they didn't even show previews of it all week leading up to it. Now I know why they didn't bother advertising it, because it was so horrible that it made their original movies look good. I didn't know that this movie would tie in with the Carnosaur trilogy(if you can call it that). It composed of stock footage from the three previous films, and at first I thought it was a complete joke. But I thought it would get better... but I was WAY wrong. This movie should only be watched to be an example of how to not even attempt to make a film and be completely lazy and un-original with film production.

It's not often you watch a rip-off of a rip-off, but RAPTOR is such a movie. It's another straight-to-video dud from director Jim Wynorski, ripping off the Roger Corman-produced CARNOSAUR franchise which itself was a JURASSIC PARK spin. This one has Corbin Bernsen as Doctor Hyde (I'm not kidding), who clones some dinosaurs before a velociraptor escapes and goes on the rampage. A bunch of B-movie types then chase after it and are variously killed by it in cheap and splashy gore scenes. There's some gun * moments, a haggard Eric Roberts doing his best to hold it together as the hero of the hour, and a lot of dark shadowy stuff that feels like padding. It's not good, even for monster lovers.

Why isn't this movie on the bottom 100? Raptor is, without a doubt, the worst movie I have seen in all of my fifteen years of life. I have never before witnessed such a catastrophic mess as this. Absolutely everything about it is awkward and cheaply done. Nobody in the cast gives a somewhat decent performance. The dialogue is utterly incoherent and the humor is anything but humorous. Corbin Bernsen was the most painful part of the whole thing. I can't help cringe when I recall some of his lines, like "In or out? You're worse than a cat!" and "Your lady friend isn't a very good poker player. She's just revealed her hand." The raptors are a joke. Even I could make more realistic dinosaur effects than these filmmakers have shamelessly done. It is an insult to the actual velociraptors, or any dinosaur for that matter. Not only that, but the killing scenes are too gruesome even for me. I don't seriously think these animals would rip their victim to shreds and throw pieces all over the ground just to make everything look gorier. Besides, the blood and guts are all useless when you can see the deaths coming from miles and miles away. I am a big fan of Jurassic Park movies and of dinosaurs. Maybe the filmmakers didn't anticipate anybody with a shred of intelligence or sense to disregard bad filmmaking to stumble upon this movie on HBO late at night, like I did. If I could say one thing to anybody involved in this film, I would have to quote Dr. Alan Grant from the first Jurassic Park... "Just try to show a little respect."

From the very beginning, you know that not a soul on set took this seriously. The plot centers around a secret lab, ran by Corbin Bernsen, that is raising dinosaurs, from t-rexs to the titled raptors. A raptor gets out and kills some people, thus leading to an investigation by Eric Roberts, who is too good of an actor for this, and the sexy Melissa Brasselle. Watching the immobile dinosaur puppets is laughable, and the climax is anything but climactic. All that being said, Melissa Brasselle will surely keep fellow male viewers interested. Guys, if you don't know who she is, rent Raptor right now, or better yet, pick up Komodo. In heaven all women look like Melissa Brasselle. I'd pay good money for 90 minutes of just watching her run. With that, the highlight to this film is when Melissa tiptoes about her house in her undies, afraid that an overgrown lizard gain entrance into her home.

Oy vey... Jurrasic Park got Corman-ized. As usual the plot is wafer thin, from 1 foot tall dinosaurs that weigh 150 pounds and leave tracks bigger than they are, to inexplicable science which uses lasers to keep the dinosaurs in check and poultry trucks which have chickens loose in cages large enough for big dogs (I've seen chicken trucks they are all in cages the size of shoe boxes). And all that is in the first 15 minutes of this disaster of a film. All the male actors are imbeciles (thinking a grizzly might be loose in the desert, constantly dropping items to give the raptor an easy kill) and the female actors all look like they just came from a modeling shoot for Fredrick's of Hollywood. The raptor itself is the worst thing since the Hobgoblins (from the movie of the same name), it looks like they had a hand puppet version and a plastic model for the "motion" shots. If you want a good movie to sit around and heckle MST3K style, this is gold. If you want competent film making and good acting... don't watch a Roger Corman film. Acting gets a 4 out 10, some of the players upon this stage did try. Story gets a 2 out of 10, it reads like a drunken storytelling session gone bad. Special effects gets a 2 out of 10, I've seen worse, but not many.

This film was really terrible. However , it's worth seeing , as it features the worlds most unnecessarily extended sex scene ever. I mean , this thing went on for about 7 - 8 minutes (repeating the same 'moves' over and over), thats almost 10 % of the whole film! I haven't laughed as hard as I laughed at that for a long time. There were some seriously strange and pointless goings on in this film, but the one that I found funniest was when (for no reason whatsoever) a helicopter lands and 5 or 6 guys in orange suits run in to the complex near the end. 2 minutes later they run out again. What the hell was that for?? Also , the tiny white forklift that magically changed into a huge yellow digger was pretty classic. I'm led to beleive that this is because they used footage from the 'carnosaur' trilogy to patch up this absolute donkey. I'm gonna have to see those now! The film is worth watching for a laugh or two , but if you dont find bad movies funny, stay away!

So I was sick with the flu one Saturday and the silver lining was that SciFi Channel was having a marathon of dinosaur movies that day - the "Carnosaur" trilogy, "Pterodactyl," "Raptor Island." Then I flicked ahead on my cable remote to see which movie SciFi placed in its glamorous, Saturday prime-time slot. Some movie I had never heard of before called "Raptor." I was pretty excited. The movie begins with some teens driving around in a jeep, when they get stalked and killed by a Velociraptor. I was like, "Hmmm, that's odd, that looks almost exactly like a scene in "Carnosaur," except it was in the middle of that movie." Then I sat through some really bad acting and then some guy was suckered into walking into an underground research laboratory where he got eaten by a ferocious T-Rex. Now I'm like, "Wait a second, that was also a scene in "Carnosaur." Then, after I saw some scenes blatantly ripped off from "Carnosaur 2", I figured out just what the hell was going on. So basically, Roger Corman & Co. ripped off scenes from the "Carnosaur" trilogy to use as the action scenes, weaved in a basic "dinosaur-runs-amok" plot, and tried to pass it off as an original movie. Shameful. I don't know who I'm more angry at, Roger Corman or SciFi Channel for trying to pass this off as worthy of the prime-time slot. The only reason why this was worth watching to its conclusion was to pick out the actors/actresses who looked like their counterparts in the "Carnosaur" trilogy and guess which scenes would be lifted next. As much as it pains me, being a dinosaur lover, I have no choice but to give this the lowest possible rating because I feel completely ripped off.

I thoroughly agree that this movie was so bad that it was good. I laughed my butt off the entire time. From the (questionably) sexy Melissa Braselle as an animal control officer, who can't raise her arms above her head for the seeming fear that her fake * will pop out, to the sinister Corbin Bernsen as Dr. Hyde ... complete with beret, this movie had me rolling. I think my favorite piece of bad movie making was the splash of blood on the wall when a tyrannosaurus (raptor? what kind of dinosaur was it again?) attacks a marine. You can literally see the blood squirting out of a hose or bottle before it splashes on the wall. Hilarious. I recommend this movie to anyone who is not prepared to take it seriously. Have a few drinks and settle down for a crap-o-rama. It's definitely worth it.

Play the Corman Drinking Game! Every time you SEE a shot lifted from another movie, TAKE a shot. I assure you, you will be thoroughly wasted by the time the credits roll. Now, I'm used to the Concorde phenomenon of splicing in scenes from their other flicks to save a buck or two. But "Raptor" takes it over the border of suspended disbelief. Actors and vehicles change between shots, almost to the point where I couldn't enjoy the movie. Almost. This flick suffers a lot at the hands of various factors, one of which is mentioned above. But it is saved, just barely, by exceptional cinematography, good acting, and two bangin' hotties. Eric Roberts plays a small town sheriff faced with a rash of bizarre mutilations. Could they be the work of a crazy cougar? An escaped felon bent on revenge? Nope! It's the Carnosaurs (They're baaaaaaack...). And it's up to Roberts and Animal Control agent Melissa Brasselle to stop the scene-chewing Corbin Bernsen and his merry band of flesh-eating critters. What you might think would be a straight-forward creature flick actually tries to infuse some plot into the proceedings, which keeps you interested between the dino slayings. Sure, it's nothing to write home about, but if you're killing time on a rainy day, you could do worse.