WTF Did I Just Watch?: Carnosaur (1993)

Carnosaur is GOLD. I spent so many hours of my youth watching it. Huddled in front of my tiny TV/VCR combo staring deeply at this sweet little dinosaur puppet. Seriously though – this movie is fucking wonderfully bad.

Produced by: Roger Corman

Directed by: Adam Simon & Darren Moloney

Effects by: Magical Media Industries, Inc.

Starring: Diane Ladd, Raphael Sbarge (I’m sure you don’t recognize the name, but he’s been in *checks notes* everything), Jennifer Runyon, Harrison Page, Ned Bellamy, and about 2 minutes of Clint Howard.
Also a dinosaur.

So, the basic synopsis is this: a geneticist who used to work for the government, but is now working for a bioengineering firm under what must be the absolute best-negotiated contract in the whole world – seriously, part of her contract is that the company just fucks off so she can do *literally* whatever she wants for 3 years on their dime. She uses her contractually provided free time to develop a lethal virus which she then sends out into the world in order to kill off humans. Why, you ask? Because she wants to replace them WITH FUCKING DESIGNER DINOSAURS that, yes, she has also engineered thank you so much for asking. Why does she want to do that you might be wondering? Who the fuck knows. She never really gets around to fully explaining that. And who cares because dinosaurs.

So, the thing with this illness is this: I think it causes the dinosaurs, which is, like, the raddest thing that has ever existed. The people get sick (well, the ladies get sick – men are fine for reasons that will quickly become apparent), and then they die while splatter-popping out dinosaur eggs. And I can’t emphasize the splatter part of that enough, cuz it kills them. They ‘splode the dinosaurs out.

But for some reason, one person who shall remain nameless for spoiler reasons doesn’t pop out an egg. She has a…mammal-saur? Son now there’s mammal-saurs too. Alright, sweet.

That reason for men not being infected that I said would quickly become apparent is because, quite frankly, dinos gotta eat. So men are convenient food sources. *shrug*

But the best thing you are going to see in this entire movie – and perhaps in your entire life is the growing-boy carnosaur (at least that’s how I think of him in my head). He’s the first, and he’s the best. Remember that Godzilla-screeing guy I said I wanted a silhouette tattoo of from the trailer? Yeah, that’s him. He was a combo platter small puppet, hand puppet (fucking what?!), large animatronic, and dude in a suit. And it shows. But in the most fun way possible. Really, I think the folks at Magical Media Industries are the real heroes on this production. They really lived up to their names and worked some magic.

Here’s some examples of the stuff they were working with (culled from IMDB):

Carnosaur is like Tammy and the T-Rex on rage juice. This dinosaur is out for blooood. I think my biggest WTF about this whole WTF-ass movie though is this: she only made carnivorous dinosaurs so…umm…what happens when this booming population of carnivores has eaten everything their is to eat? Won’t they then just devolve into cannibalism and wipe each other out? So, if you wanted to give the Earth back to them, I think you fucking failed, dear. They’re dead in the water. Oops.

You can’t really find this movie on any streaming services, which is a damn shame. You can buy it (and should), or you might be able to find it on some obscure service that Just Watch doesn’t deal with. But you really should. It’s WTF-y, sure, but it’s also insane and hilarious, and 100% worth watching.