201 - Raptor Ranch

    A sleepy town in Texas has a scientist that has somehow created a handful of dinosaurs.  When the scientist dies, the dinosaurs stalk a handful of characters.
    It’s hard to talk about how terrible this movie is, because there was never any inkling that it would be any good.  If you know you’re getting into a cheap, poorly made movie, what else do you expect?

    For this occasion, I’m going to do a bigger, more comprehensive writeup, since it’s hard to explain everything that’s wrong about this movie.

    We open on some Native American drums and flutes, as a girl gives some voiceover narration about who and where she is.  Her name is Abbi Whitecloud.  There are a few shots of bare trees.  Then we see Abbi doing some kind of ritual.  There’s actually crosstalk during this bit.  Abbi’s narration continues as she speaks words during her ritual.  The narration talks about how she wants to be a successful singer.

    Abbi is suddenly attacked by a dinosaur!  We know that it’s coming at her, because we get dino-vision - a green filter.  The dinosaur attacks and eats her!

    Wait…something’s wrong.  When I first watched this, I assumed that this was something where they stuck the ending at the beginning.  It turns out that I’m wrong.  The narration implies that this is actually Abbi’s mother, who died 6 months before.
    This raises even more problems.  Abbi’s mother looks exactly like Abbi?  And Abbi’s mother is the same age as Abbi?  The dinosaurs have been loose for six months and no one has noticed?

    Now we get our first glimpse of a dinosaur.  Get used to seeing this shot, because they re-use the same perspective and walk cycle for the rest of the movie.

    Look at this one.  The dinosaur is sniffing a dismembered limb on a large flat surface…

    Then the movie starts in proper.

    There are shots of scenery.  We learn that three people are credited with writing the screenplay.  And this guy, the scientist, exits the front of his house wearing black boots, a jacket, a hat, and long pajamas.  We admire his TV dish, his holiday decorations, combined with the festive lawn flamingos.  What else says that you’re in Texas?

     Scientist mumbles to himself as he walks over to the dinosaurs.  We know they’re dinosaurs because of the dino-vision.

     He opens the gate, and we get to see a few shots of bloody bones and such.  That’s how we know he’s feeding them.
    He sees some broken metal and his handmade sign announcing that the “white raptor” has broken out.  He exclaims “Oh, no!”  He scrapes together some meat into a bucket, then brings it to feed the purple dinosaur.  The purple dinosaur is kept behind an electric fence.  We know it’s electric since we see electricity flashing along it now and then, just like electricity in the real world.

     At this point, the scientist mumbles a monologue to the purple dinosaur.  I think he talks about how he raised this dinosaur.  Most of this is shot in dino-vision, but it’s inconsistent.  I’m not sure why.  You can see - the left side of the shot is firmly in dino-vision (although the different dinosaurs seem to have different color tints to their vision.  Because obviously, black people see colors completely differently from white people.)  But you can see it shifts into normal color at the right side of the frame.  His hand, and part of his ear are normal.  I can’t figure out why this happened.  It seems like more work to not just tint the entire shot.

    Now seems like a good time to point out that sometime between leaving the house and reaching his holding barn, he’s found time to put shoes and pants on.  I also think he’s changed his jacket, but I can’t be sure of that.

    Now we go over to Abbi’s house.  She seems to have some Christmas decorations up as well.  And a For Sale sign, but I’m not sure why that’s there.

    Abbi’s alarm goes off, and she gets a radio announcer reminding the audience that police are still investigating the death of her mother, which happened six months ago.  At this point, we’re given a reason to pay attention.

    Yes, Abbi spends almost the entire movie wearing a tight-fitting, low-cut shirt.  She runs a lot, too!  As she gets up, we see a picture of her and who I presume is her mother.  Someone who looks nothing like the opening scene death.

    As Abbi brushes her teeth, she gets a phone call from Billy Wayne, a local sleeze.  The call is picked up by her answering machine.  Under that, there’s a copy of what looks like Bowhunter magazine.

    Abbi poses with her bow in the hallway, and fires an arrow at a picture of Billy Wayne, establishing that she doesn’t like him.  There are a few things that are strange about this still.  “Billy sez: A vote for me is a vote for…  Billy Wayne for Mayor”  As dumb as that sounds, it’s a beautifully understated campaign.  On the left of the frame… why are there three eyes?  I also wonder about how the arrows could poke into the picture at that angle if she’s firing down a hallway at it.

    Billy’s message reminds Abbi to “dress appropriately” for work, and that her new uniform is on her front step.  She picks this up, and starts up her car to drive to work.  Then we cut to North Dallas University.  A student wearing some ski gear runs to a class late.  This is Lucas Young.  The professor asks his class “when did man become upright?”  Lucas announces “Last night, baby!” as he strolls in.

    Lucas whispers to Sheldon in class as the professor keeps talking.  The professor says that the reason man became upright is “survival.”  The bell rings.  Class lets out.  This guy ran into class to attend about 30 seconds of a lecture.
    Meanwhile, Abbi’s car breaks down, and the scientist guy picks her up to drive her into town.  She makes some talk about how her mom should have bought a “…certified, pre-owned vehicle.  You know, something with a multi-point inspection?  I’m thinking about selling the place… getting out of this god-forsaken town.”  Way to wedge two ideas together.
    This is also as good a time as any to reveal what her uniform looks like.  And to frame a shot so her ass is the focus.

    The scientist picks up a piece of roadkill and tosses it in the back of his truck.
    Back at the University, Lucas and Sheldon chatter.  Somehow, Lucas managed to get Sheldon’s mom’s station wagon, has packed it up for a ski trip, and parked it in what looks like an obvious tow zone.  This is made really puzzling, since this station wagon was in some of the arial transition shots earlier.  Did Lucas go find Sheldon’s mom somewhere else, pack up the car with his gear, then drive back to the University?  It would make more sense if the car was already on campus.

    Inside the car, we meet more dinosaur food - a guy nicknamed “Beast.”

    To try to persuade Sheldon to go skiing, Lucas describes that they’d be going to Taos Mountain Ski Resort, with “four girls, eight titties.”  Then he imitates girls shaking.

    Then we go over to Billy Wayne’s Swine ’N’ Dine.  This is how you know how sleezy Billy Wayne is.  He sends the other sweaty guy out to go get some squirrel as a “secret ingredient”

    Abbi and the scientist pull up.  She gets out, and takes her jacket off in slow motion as  bunch of locals eye her.

    Abbi complains to Billy, and we get the backstory that her mother owed money to Billy for the car, and that Billy is making Abbi pay off the car.

    Elsewhere, Little Willy and the Will-ettes are about to start their show.

    They are immediately chased out by stereotypical rednecks.

    They drive off in their ridiculous painted bus.

    Meanwhile, Lucas drinks from a breast-shaped mug.  Stay classy.  We get this fantastic conversation.
    “Bro… no matter what I do… I can live to 200 years old… and never run out of stuff.”
    “What stuff?”
    “Don’t act stupid.  My stuff.”
    “Really.  What?  What are you talking about.”
    “Love goo.”
    “Love goo?”
    “Baby batter.”
    “So it’s pretty clear that your, uh, life’s ambition is to run out of sperm.”
    “Exactly!”

    Then we cut to “Federal Building” in Austin, Texas.  (For the sake of accuracy, Austin is about 3 hours away from University of North Texas at Dallas.)  Two agents sit in a room, and one gets a call.  They hear about the death, which has attracted attention because it was “killed by an animal… large animal… they can’t figure out what type.”

    One of the agents relates that he’s there as punishment for “screwing the bureau chief’s daughter.”  The same agent pronounces “podunk” as “podonk”  And he ends the conversation with “Shalom chaverim.  Let’s go.”

    Then we go back to the Little Willy bus, as the girls argue, and it’s revealed the Little Willy is gay.  This is intercut with Lucas and Sheldon arguing about running out of gas.

    Now we enter into a weird sequence, intercut between the guys driving, the Little Willy bus, and the Agents.  Each of them just focus on how bad things smell, and they all pass signs indicating that they’re about 10 miles from “Active Dog Food.”
    Thankfully, one of the Agents has a great line, saying that “CSI is already on the scene.”  Just about six months late.
    At the scene, an officer looks over some chunks of meat on the ground, and then decides to bag a finger that she spots.

    Sheriff Morgan and Deputy Jones and the examiner lady meet the two special agents as they arrive.  The Sheriff asks the examiner lady, “You have a chance to check anything out yet?”  “No.”  So looking over the scene and bagging a finger doesn’t count?  She goes on to describe that the “teeth marks indicate a very large predator-type creature.”

    “We’ll still need to run some tests…and… do the DNA.”  She also says that “the arm looks of African-American descent.”  We don’t get a clear view of the arm, but if it’s anything like the person we saw killed at the beginning… no.  No, it doesn’t.
    She points to a print left near the creek.  A sloppy job at making a dinosaur-esque footprint.

    Back at Billy Wayne’s shop, the scientist stops by.  Clearly, no one in town likes him except for Abbi.  Notice that the shelves behind them are stocked with one can or bottle per line?  And that all DVDs are on sale for $13.99… even though there are no DVDs to be seen?

    Back at the "crime" scene, the examiner lady says "I'm heading back to QUantico now.  We've got all we can get here.  The rest is lab work.  We'll need you to keep this under lockdown until our people get here tomorrow morning."  Back to Quantico?  Okay, if you say so.  In the meantime, the guys at Billy Wayne's admire Abbi's butt.

     While Abbi is fueling up the scientist's tank, the scientist has a mini heart attack.  He mostly just shudders while he looks at her.  Then he offers her life advice and drives off.
     The agents stop off at a tiny rest stop.  It's so tiny that it seems to have the absolute bare minimum for food available.

    Just coffee.  And an ad for Heineken.  Why does she even bother to ask "What'll it be?"  It's not just this shot either.  When she decides to argue with her husband, things look pretty bare.

    Also of note is that the lady starts out sounding normal, then she adds an accent as the scene moves on.  The agents decide to order chicken-fried steak.
    Little Willy's bus starts to smoke.
     And the agents are back on the road, suddenly.  Now they have a conversation that suggests that something completely different happened that the audience wasn't privy to.
     "... three people going missing in three months?  Not to mention seven dogs, and more than a dozen cattle."  As they drive, somehow, the passing landscape changes into a very different residential area.

  We go back to the scientist, who collapses in his yard.
    Back at Billy Wayne's store, the college kids push their car in, looking to buy gas.  Then Little Willy shows up with the smoking bus.

You know... I'm gonna skip a bunch of stuff.  They decide to go to the scientist's place, hoping to get some gas.  On the way, Sheldon and Abbi talk.  This is one of the weird things about this movie - they occasionally start arguing for no reason.  It's almost as if a screenwriter was told "there needs to be more conflict!"

     Then the examiner lady makes a phone call to the agents.  She announces that the DNA report came back, and that the DNA's closest match is a velociraptor.  Wow, the government has a DNA database that can tell what an extinct creature's DNA is?  She also warns that they are nocturnal, and that they're the most ferocious hunters the world has seen.

    Skipping forward a bit, the kids get to the scientist.  They try to get gas.  Beast sees a bunch of breaker boxes, and manages to open all the doors and turn the electric fences off.

A bunch of dinosaurs are let loose.

And here we get a great visual.  Yes, even though the scientist was researching in secret, he still hung a banner calling it "Raptor Ranch."  Brilliant.

Seeing that still raises a few other questions.  For almost all of the movie, the dinosaurs don't run on camera.  They usually walk pretty slowly.  This is one of the only times where a dinosaur runs.
     Then the kids go back to Abbi's house, where Billy Wayne is relaxing in the couch, hoping to seduce Abbi or something.  Then a dinosaur breaks through the ceiling and eats him.  Finally.

     Abbi gets her bow, the dinosaur sticks its head through a window and looks at them, then the kids all run off into the night.
    Meanwhile, some of the dinosaurs are sniffing around Little Willy's bus.

Then Little Willy is eaten as he sits on the toilet.
    Then one of the girls in the van gets her head bitten off!

    The kids run through a well-lit forest as dinosaurs slowly pursue them.

    They run into a drainage tunnel, and just stop.  I don't know how dumb they think these dinosaurs are.  It's even sillier, since the dinosaur could easily fit into the tunnel.

The kids run away, they find the bloody remains back at Billy Wayne's, then they try to escape in the bus.  A dinosaur catches up and noses the bus around.

Most of the kids escape the bus and run inside.  Sheldon sticks around, and eventually distracts the dinosaur by throwing a mutilated arm down the street.  The dinosaur walks after it, sniffs it, leading to...

The exact same shot that was used at the beginning!
While the kids fuss about inside, the dinosaurs slowly fight outside.  Eventually, Lucas decides that he should get dressed up and attack the dinosaurs.  He wears some strange play clothes, and runs outside with a gun, and is promptly eaten.

Finally.
After he's eaten, two of the larger dinosaurs look at each other.  One of the girls screams.  Then we're treated to a "time passing" shot.  The moon moves across the sky.  We see a shot of a clock, which now reads around 10:20.  Then we return to the dinosaurs growling at each other.
     I have no idea why this happens.  I don't know if it was edited out of order or what, but it doesn't make sense.

     Inside, the remaining kids are sitting around.  The goth girl is "fishing."  She gets a bite, and lets in a small dinosaur.

The kids run out, and I think one of the big dinosaurs may have killed the other dinosaur.  It isn't clear, except that a telephone pole is knocked over, and the power goes out.
    Then it's morning.  The kids are still running.  Have they been running solidly since about 10:30?  I don't think so.  But they go to the abandoned Active Dog Food factory.

And the purple dinosaur is close behind.

They run around, they try to lose the dinosaur, etc.  Eventually, the goth girl trips or something, and the dinosaur kills her.  By stepping on her back.  Most animals kill for food.  Sometimes, they kill in fights for dominance or something like that.  Does this dinosaur enjoy hunting humans?

Now we come to the climax of the film.  Abbi and Sheldon block off the door.  They check the other end of the hallway, and it's a dropoff - a two-story drop onto pavement.

They sit and talk for a little bit.  Then the dinosaur is about to break through the other doors.  They decide to jump!  And here's their landing...

A clumsy edit to them jumping onto the ground.  No injuries.  The dinosaur jumps down, Abbi runs away, and Sheldon is killed the same as the goth girl.

They do some even funnier work with these effects.  Sheldon lays still, and they digitally crush his back by tinting it.
     Abbi runs around, jiggling as the dinosaur chases her.  Eventually, she runs into a room and finds a tomahawk for some reason.  She says "thanks, mom."  Is this supposed to be her mom's stuff?  Why would it be in an abandoned dog food factory?
    Note - I also love the handwritten "Danger Explosive" sign in the background.  Why would a dog food factory need explosives?

And now the dinosaur can't get through this door.  Not sure why... even if the other door couldn't budge, it's been able to break through enough other stuff.

"This is for you, mama!" and Abbi throws the axe.  It bounces off the dinosaur's head.  No effect at all.

"It's you and me, bitch!"  Abbi takes a handy, half-full container of gas, and starts sloshing it on the floor.

"Go to hell!"  Abbi takes out a lighter and tosses it onto the gas.

Abbi runs, and then the whole floor blows up.

The explosion wakes up the two agents, who seem to be staying close enough to have felt it.

Meanwhile, the rest of the building is still exploding.

The agents drive out, looking to investigate.  They run into Deputy Jones, who already knows that the "old factory" blew up.  Then she tells them that "That's nothing compared to what they found at Fossil Ridge this morning.  Remains of...  I know this sounds crazy, but those ostriches?  They weren't ostriches at all.  They're what seems to be... dinosaurs."  Ostriches?  No one has mentioned them before now!
   It's revealed that Abbi is the only survivor, and then we go back to the beginning sequence.

Then we get a "one year later."  And now, she's a singer.

This is intercut with a dinosaur creeping around.

Over the credits, Jana Mashonee sings another song.  I think this movie may have been intended to launch her music career.

     I haven't fully captured how strange this movie is.  It plays like a draft of a script was written, but the writer didn't think through the logistics of anything.  It plays like they wanted more conflict, so they added a few nonsensical arguments.  The effects work is strange and cheap.  Sometimes, it seems like the dinosaurs change size.
    The direction didn't bother me at first, but as I was looking for these stills, I realized that it was pretty weak.  The composition is awkward, and characters are obscured by some poor blocking.

     Still, it was interesting.  It's not as bad as the legendary bad movies, but it's actually worse, because it's alternately boring and confusing.
    The budget was about 3.5M.