Carnosaur (film)

A series of four Roger Corman-produced B horror films. The first film received a limited theatrical release, whereas the remaining three were Direct to Video.

Several weeks after Jurassic Park premiered, in 1993, Carnosaur hit video stores. Loosely based on the novel of the same title by John Brosnan (a.k.a. Harry Adam Knight), the film stars Diane Ladd as Dr. Jane Tiptree, a Mad Scientist whose been fiddling around with the DNA of chickens, thus causing them to lay dinosaur eggs. When one of said egg hatches into a cheap hand puppet deinonychus, it escapes and starts tearing up the local countryside. The attacks lead local security guard Doc (Raphael Sbarge) and hippie Thrush (Jennifer Runyon) to Jane's hideout, where they find out she is planning to wipe out humanity by unleashing a virus that will make all women in the world become fatally pregnant with dinosaurs, whereupon they will take over the earth.

Allow me to repeat that. She [Jane] is planning to wipe out humanity by unleashing a virus that will make all women in the world become fatally pregnant with dinosaurs, whereupon they will take over the earth.

R.I.P. your brain cells.

Oh, and do we get a rip-off of the "chestburster" scene in Alien, birth scene, portraying that said above?

Oh yes. We get three.

Gene Siskel gave the film the thumbs up. Make of that what you will.

Carnosaur 2, released in 1995, takes place a little after the events in the first movie. A special team is sent to investigate an underground laboratory that has apparently shut down. When they arrive, they discover that the crew has been reduced to nothing but bloody limbs; obviously eaten. Then after finding a young boy who survived the carnage, they begin getting taken out one by one by the remaining Carnosaurs that were being held down there. The dinosaur effects in this one are improved since the first one, but it is nowhere near as interesting. The end Carnosaur Vs. Bulldozer scene is basically a rehash of the Carnosaur Vs. Forklift scene from the first movie. Not the best but decent.

Carnosaur 3: Primal Species, released in 1996, has a team of terrorists hijack a top-secret military convoy, thinking they have captured weapons-grade plutonium. Instead, the convoy was carrying dinosaurs, and the dinosaurs attack and kill the squad of terrorists. A military recovery team learns the convoy is stopped in a warehouse on the local waterfront, and immediately goes out to retrieve it. The dinosaurs attack the squad, leaving only three soldiers. Back at their headquaters, their captain refuses to go back unless they kill the dinos, but the scientist in charge of the operation orders them to merely capture the dinos. Heading back out to the warehouse, the team gets additional help with a Marine Task Force. Together, they still can't control the dinosaurs. They finally find a way to get them under control: luring them out to a ship, sailing them out to sea and blowing the ship up.

Composed largely out of stock footage from the previous three films, Raptor, released in 2001, features Sheriff Jim Tanner and his assistant Barbara trace a series of unexplained vicious animal attacks striking his community back to a Dr. Hyde, a former military researcher whose government funding for a dinosaur cloning project was cut. When the Pentagon discovers Hyde obtained foreign backing to continue his experiments, they send in a strike team to save Tanner and Barbara and stop Hyde.

Tropes used in Carnosaur (film) include:


  • B-Movie
  • Danger Takes a Backseat: In Carnosaur 2, by means of Offscreen Teleportation, no less.
  • Disney Villain Death: The T. rex in 2' dies when it falls down on an elevator shaft.
  • Downer Ending: The first film ends with Doc and Thruush getting shot.
  • Everything's Better with Chickens
  • Film of the Book: The first film.
  • Forklift Fu: The first film.
  • Gaia's Vengeance: Of the Gaia's avenger variety.
  • Gendercide: Jane's plan involves having all women die so that men cannot mate and humans go extinct.
  • Gorn
  • Hellish Copter: The crashing helicopter in Carnosaur 2.
  • Recycled in Space: Carnosaur 2 is Aliens WITH DINOSAURS!. And its blatant enough to almost cross the line into direct rip-off ( researchers killed by hostile lifeforms with only one kid survivor? Check. Backup is called in to investigate and nearly get killed on their first trip into the facility? check. Their pilot is disabled by hostile lifeform just as they are about to takeoff? check. Survivors hole up in the command center and set traps to keep lifeforms out? check. Facility will blow up soon? check! Lifeforms attack the command center and Heroes escape through the air vents, where two of their own are left behind to suicide bomb the lifeforms?? One member of the group is left behind and the hero has to go back into the facility to get them? Final showdown between the hero and a giant hostile, using construction equipment? Check check check!!!!)
  • The Mockbuster: The first film and the fourth coincided with the release of the first and third Jurassic Park films.
  • Stock Dinosaurs: The first film features a deinonychus (essentially a velociraptor) and a T-rex.
  • Stock Footage: Used throughout the first two sequels, Raptor is almost completely made up of it
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