I have never been a fan of gore. Horror movies that rely of blood and guts disgust me to the point of hating an entire movie even if the plot is good simply because of an absurd amount of gore. For this reason, I often find older and really bad horror and science fiction films that, while the story may be awful, it’s clean enough that I spend the entire time laughing.
The idea of this review began when Kylan posted a facebook survey about how many “bad” movies he had seen (I’ve only seen 36 of 170, but I plan to remedy this). I responded by asking how many of those he had seen he enjoyed.
I realize there are many really bad movies out there that should never have seen the light of day, even if they never reached a movie theater, but there are also many that, while considered “bad,” are enjoyable on different levels.
So this week I review a gem from the depth of the ‘90s: Tammy and the T-Rex. First, check out the trailer.
I came across this film while searching for another 90’s dinosaur flick on YouTube, the most expensive straight-to-video movie, Theodore Rex (a movie I may review in the future, but feel free to check out the podcast How Did This Get Made’s examination of it). I’d never heard about Tammy and the cover image on the video, featuring Denise Richards riding a tyrannosaurus, made me curious enough to investigate. I assumed it was a ridiculous
90s TV spot from Comedy Central.
It’s not.
Tammy and the T-Rex (1994, PG-13) tells the story of Tammy (Denise Richards), a cheerleader who has recently started dating Michael (Paul Walker), but is dealing with her abusive ex-boyfriend Billy (George Pilgrim). There is never an explanation for why she broke up with Billy, but I assume it is because he’s annoying and constantly stalking her with his network of gang members. One night after Billy is caught climbing into Tammy’s bedroom, Billy’s gang beats Michael unconscious, then drives him into an open zoo. Apparently the zoo in this city drugs all of their wild animals and trains them not to kill each other, because we see both a lion and a panther wandering the grounds without any barriers surrounding the driving path. The gates are also impressively locked with only a hinge and a zip tie, which while Billy easily breaks in with a knife, the wild animals would never be able to break through such a fortress. Not surprising, when Michael wakes up and is immediately mauled by a lion.
Meanwhile, a crazy scientist (Terry Kiser) has just finished building an animatronic T-Rex. But it’s just a robot- what could he do to make it better? Why not give it a real human brain? (Something I’m sure many of us think when we see animatronic dinosaurs). So the doctor and his assistant walk into the nearest hospital where they conveniently find Michael. Kidnapping him, they bring him to their lab, transplanting his brain into the body of the robot.
Michael wakes up as a robot dinosaur (remember, this is a robot – the scientist was not genius enough to bring real dinosaurs back), and decides to find Tammy and her friend Byron (Theo Forsett). Despite being a robot built with specific dimensions, including immovable fingers and accurate arm lengths for a tyrannosaurus, somehow Michael easily dials Tammy’s phone number from the near payphone and grips the receiver, later retrieving his quarter (where he put it, I really am not concerned with). He is also easily able to cover his face, smooth the wrinkles out of a person’s shirt, and bring food to his mouth which extends too far for him to normally reach. I commend the scientist for this, as even Henson Studios had to alter designs to work that out for their show. Once finding his friends and convincing them who he is, the group works to figure out how to get Michael back into his own body; all the while the scientist and his assistant track them down.
Given the stars of this movie, I assumed this movie would be at least somewhat enjoyable. Both Denise Richards and Paul Walker had not been in many films at this time, mainly starring in bit television parts. Despite this, I assumed this would be their break-out role. I can find no evidence of this being said film, but it is certainly the reason neither have regularly been in the comedy genre since. The movie poster might have tipped me off to this fact, as the Paul Walker, the co-star in the title who has a little more than 1/3 screen time, is not even mentioned.
This film has many faults, not the least of which that it was made. Given the year it was released, just a year after Jurassic Park, I assume its intended audience was the same group of teenagers. This is in no way to the same caliber as Jurassic Park and the jokes seem to reach for stoners (without introducing drugs in the movie). This is especially seen at the finale, when Michael, now simply a brain connected to a camera because a body has not been found for him, is greeted by Tammy in her bedroom doing a strip tease.
The American release was rated PG-13, however this was also a Rated-R cut release internationally. This version can also be found on YouTube, but it is in Italian. This version includes bloodier death scenes with the dinosaur, and an extended cut of Michael’s mauling.
In my opinion, this movie is stupid enough to make anybody laugh at least one thing in the 80 minutes of confusion. I actually did enjoy this movie, and was constantly amazed but the impressive robotics of the actual dinosaur. The ridiculous costume arms shown when Michael had to do non-dinosaur things drew away from the plot , but when you have a plot like this, even the writing itself would so the same.
Overall, I give this movie 3 out of 5 brownies. While I think it is this decent though, I would rather have the brownies.