Monster of the Day #193

Updated on February 8, 2011 By Ken Begg 12 Comments

Hey, when you have a suit this good, you *can’t* just use it once.

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  • BeckoningChasm

    Aha, I’m guessing it’s from those L-rry B-ch-n-n films (trying not to use spoilers).

    It looks like a Halloween decoration from Good Housekeeping. “Here’s how you can add a holiday touch to avacadoes!”

  • roger h

    Proof of divine creation. Don’t tell me that ping pong ball eyes just spontaneously “evolved”.

  • KeithB
  • Ericb

    I think this should win the award for worst rendition of a dinosaur ever.

  • I told the story in my review of It’s Alive of how my high school friend Andrew, with whom I had myself watched the film obsessively literally dozens of times, had not figured out that the ‘dinosaur’ was supposed to be giant-sized. Aghast when he pooh-poohed the idea, I pointed out that it was much huger than the mean husband when they were framed together. “That’s just because it’s closer to the camera!” he replied. (Thus ruining a piece of ‘movie magic,’ I might add.) The basis of his objection was that if this were what the film was trying to communicate, then it was guilty of an almost unbelievable level of incompetence.

    However, when I further questioned why then the mean husband conspicuously raised his gun hand and clearly fired upward at a severe angle, he grudgingly had to concede the point. This was very, very early in our respective bad movies careers, I should note. Once that hurdle was cleared, Andrew proved a lot less conventional (and innocent) in his cinematic assumptions.

  • Gamera

    Ok, forgive me for complaining about ‘dinosaurs’ made out of a alligator or monitor lizard with a plastic fin glued to it’s back. They were friggin’ Harryhousen compared to this sucka.

  • The Rev.

    When I first saw this movie, I made sure to pause it and bring the other members of the household in to see this suit in all its crowning glory. I haven’t seen a reaction from them that great since Ro-Man.

    The movie drags, but that suit sure livens things up a bit, for the moments it’s onscreen. The bad guy’s kind of fun, too, which helps.

    I need to inflict the Giant Claw on them at some point, it occurs to me.

  • i have not seen this film, but the “dinosaur” staggers me with its incompetence. What were they thinking?

  • Rock Baker

    Okay, okay, yes, it’s terrible, but I feel the need to point out that this thing wasn’t built AS a dinosaur, it just got used that way when Larry made another movie that needed a reptile. This was actually built to be a gillman-type monster for Creature of Destruction, Larry’s remake of The She Creature. I’m not excusing how goofy it looks, I’m just pointing out that it had the dinosaur label thrust upon it after the fact. Had Buchanan no leftover suit and needed a ‘dinosaur’ I’m sure he would’ve had something built that more closely resembled the classic carnosaur. At the very least it might’ve had a tail. All I’m saying is that this wasn’t built to be a dinosaur, it was built to be a shabby gillman in a TV movie. (Not that it fares a lot better there, but it does look mildly more life-like lurking about in the shadows outside lakeside cabins.)

    Speaking of Buchanan, I bought the DVD of The Naked Witch with his commentary track. He seemed unaware of the fact that his movies were terrible. (An odd side note: the male lead in The Naked Witch, Robert Short I think, looks exactly like I did that first year out of high school! Same mannerisms! At least I was never so stupid as to dig up a witch and remove the stake from her skeleton after just reading about how it happened, but watching that movie is still a very weird experience for me.)

  • roger h

    oh them “experts” with their fancy “paleontologist” degrees think they know all about dinosaur reconstructions.

    Well, them “scientist” weren’t around back then so how do we know they are right?

  • sandra

    My strongest memory of Buchanan’s movie is how incredibly lame the monster was. Is it just me, or does it seem to be wearing a pointy collar exacly like Kermit the Frog does ?

  • Rock Baker

    Didn’t Harpo flash this same expression during the doorway skit?