Have you ever had one of those late-night cheese-induced dreams, that leaves you waking up wide-eyed and in a cold sweat? The sort of bizarre fantasy that you would be ashamed to admit to your partner? I’m talking about a magical world in which zombie dinosaurs exist and can shoot freakin’ lasers out of their eyes! That’s what The Jurassic Dead promises, and I’m actually trembling with excitement. How on Earth can this movie possibly go wrong? So, I shall say it just once, ‘pull up your big boy pants and grab a cigar, we’re going in sarge. This is gonna be FUN!’
The Jurassic Dead was written by Milko Davis (Raiders of the Damned 2007, Tsunambee 2015) and Michele Pacitto. It also saw the reunion of Davis and Thomas Martwick, directing together after their 2015 monster B-movie (no pun intended) Tsunambee (2015). This movie also boasts a long list of 8 producers who between them share a whole string of low budget monster movies. Even the majority of the cast have worked together before, admittedly on mostly fan-made superhero and creature features, but the IMDB credentials for this movie do make for very repetitive reading.
So how does all of this translate into a film? Well, it’s like a load of familiar sci-fi and action movies has been blended together into a crazy mind-blowing cocktail. Expect to see some quite blatant scene spoofing from a whole plethora of movies from Star Wars to Jurassic Park, and the appearance of some familiar looking characters from screens big and small.
We are asked to suspend disbelief with a ridiculous plot, and the most unlikely looking homage to Jeffrey Combs’ Dr Herbert West you will ever have seen in Cooper Elliott (Justice League: Trinity Force 2015). This crazed scientist creates a bright green serum that can reanimate the dead. After his scientific breakthrough is not taken seriously, he sets about teaching the nay-sayers a lesson by creating the ultimate war machine, a zombified dinosaur. When it’s clear that the Doc has gone too far, a crack team of mercenaries is sent in to stop him, led by none other than the living incarnation of Duke Nukem.
The Jurassic Dead is a B-movie nerds wet dream. It’s a fun, action-packed film, that will entertain and leave you feeling all warm and happy inside. Sure, there are some really long and unnatural pauses in the dialogue, the special effects are absolutely laughable, and the whole thing is just so very cliched. But there is something quite satisfying about seeing grown men and women running from a large rubber puppet dinosaur. All of this is acceptable, expected even, unfortunately, the production is marred further still by a sometimes unforgivable low film quality, and some really annoying smudges on the screen. It just felt like the post-production could have been better.
That being said, Davis and Martwick’s The Jurassic Dead is a blast. Come on, a dinosaur that turns you into a zombie if it bites you. Genius. They already have a sequel (Z-Rex: Dead War) lined up for release in 2019. Bring it on!
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