LIKE A BAT OUTTA HELL (aka BAT OUTTA HELL aka NOWHERE ELSE)

 

Publicity poster for Like A Bat Outta Hell (aka Bat Outta Hell aka Nowhere Else (© Danial Donai/Forescene Films/Tricoast Worldwide – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

On 17 October 2024, my movie watch was the Australian cryptozoology-themed horror film Like A Bat Outta Hell (aka Bat Outta Hell aka Nowhere Else, the last-mentioned being its original title).

Directed and written by Danial Donai, and released in 2013 by Tricoast Worldwide, Like A Bat Outta Hell is all about a team of four young surfing film-makers – Randy (played by Marco Dapper), Jack (Dan Balcaban), Bianca (Rachael Murphy), and Chris (William Wensley) – sent by their bosses/funders into a vast barren region of South Australia's Outback to film a new but unspecified subject; they'll only be told what it is once they reach their remote location. So far, so sinister…

And indeed, one of the four team members, Chris, is secretly serving as an inside man for the team's bosses, so he does know what the subject is that the team is to film – a scientifically-unrecognised form of human-sized carnivorous bat indigenous to this wasteland and exceedingly dangerous, ripping off the faces of human victims. This is why the other three film-makers were not told about it, as they would never have agreed to set out if they had known

 

One of the giant humanoid bats from this movie (© Danial Donai/Forescene Films/Tricoast Worldwide – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

But as any clear film footage that proves this mystery beast's reality will net the team's bosses a fortune, they are most anxious for the team to locate and record these monstrous entities, regardless of what terrible fate may await them. The usual mayhem and carnage typically depicted in monster movies like this one duly ensues, but the viewer has to wait an agonisingly long time before some full. clear views of the voracious man-bats (created for the movie via CGI) are finally shown.

They resemble an unsettling hybrid of the giant moths from The Blood Beast Terror and the vampiric Mr Kurt Barlow from the original TV mini-series version of Salem's Lot, but are presented as corporeal cryptids rather than supernatural bloodsuckers or suchlike. Indeed, when the team reach in the afore-mentioned barren Outback a ghost town named Nowhere Else and find it  inhabited by only one elderly man, Simson (Vernon Wells), they also find that he is equipped with some decidedly physical, tangible weaponry and also that he is a closet cryptozoologist, not a private paranormalist.

Moreover, director Donai has stated that he was inspired to write and direct this movie after being informed in the real-life South Australian outback town of Nowhere Else he was visiting that a team of documentary film-makers had lately claimed that while filming in that area they had been attacked by a human-sized bat. Yeah, right – if so, how come the notably rich vein of Australian cryptozoology is entirely dry regarding mystery man-sized Australian bats?

 

Publicity poster for the movie Chiroptera(© Danial Donai/Forescene Films/Tricoast Worldwide – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

After running for 92 minutes, Like A Bat Outta Hell finally reaches an ending but one that comes unexpectedly and is very disappointing, as it provides no resolution whatsoever to the plot. However, in 2019 a much longer version, containing a lot of additional footage, yielding a total running time of 130 mins, was released, and retitled Chiroptera. I have not seen that version, but it apparently includes several fully-shot scenes that were only spoken about in the 2013 movie.

Like A Bat Outta Hell is an interesting but decidedly odd, offbeat flick, and it doesn't even feature a cameo or any song tracks from the now late but always great Meat Loaf. Shame.

Please click here if you'd like to go batty watching an official trailer on YouTube for this movie, or here to watch the entire movie free of charge, again on YouTube.

Finally: to view a complete chronological listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE, and please click HERE to view a complete fully-clickable alphabetical listing of them.

 

Close-up shot of one of the giant humanoid bats from this movie (© Danial Donai/Forescene Films/Tricoast Worldwide – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

 

"BRING ME THE HEAD OF KING KONG!" - FROM THE EMPIRE STATE BUILDING TO A SCOTTISH PANTOMIME?

 

Vintage photograph of a man-made pantomime stage prop in the form of a giant primate head (but NOT derived from a real, dead animal) (public domain/Wikipedia)

Is there a connection between a certain giant movie ape that met its demise atop NYC's Empire State Building and an over-sized primate that appeared on stage in a Scottish pantomime? The visually-striking vintage photograph presented above leads me to suspect that there might indeed be one, as I'll now explain.

Needless to say, had I first chanced upon this picture only quite recently I would probably have simply assumed it to be an AI-generated image and therefore may not have investigated it, as the head is certainly far too big to be from any type of anatomically-feasible primate, even one of the cryptozoological kind.

In reality, however, I first encountered it online some years ago (on Wikipedia, if memory serves me correctly), and its arresting appearance was such that I decided to do whatever I could to identify exactly what it depicted and where it had originated. Here is what I discovered.

As indicated by this present blog article's tongue-in-cheek title, parodying the biblical Salome's imperious demand to King Herod Antipas for John the Baptist's head (served on a platter, which it duly was!), I had initially wondered whether this public-domain photo may have been in some way related to the original, classic King Kong monster movie released by RKO Radio Pictures in spring 1933, directed by Marian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack, and starring Fay Wray alongside this movie's titular stop-motion mega-star created by celebrated animator Willis H. O'Brien. Perhaps it was a spare giant ape head for close-up shots, or used for publicity purposes?

Although that idea ultimately proved false, I suspect that it nonetheless contains an element of relevance to the latter movie. For what I finally found out was that the object in this photo is actually a gaff, in this instance specifically a stage prop that had featured in a major pantomime performed just a few months after the release of King Kong.

 

Publicity photo-still of American actress Fay Wray promoting the 1933 film King Kong (public domain)

According to an unidentified, tantalizingly-brief newspaper report published on 11 December 1933 that had contained the photo, what it depicts is a 4.5-ft-tall giant ape or monkey head made from cardboard and paper (NOT from the remains of any real, dead animal) that had been specially constructed by a stage props company for a pantomime staged in Glasgow, Scotland, during the winter 1933/34 pantomime season. So it seems possible, even likely, that the prop was inspired by King Kong, which had proved such a massive hit worldwide earlier that very same year, especially as British pantomime tradition is famous for incorporating references to notable news stories that have occurred earlier on during the year in which the pantomime is being staged

Sadly, the newspaper report gave no further details, not even naming the pantomime in question or the theatre where it was staged. According to the Panto Archive website's comprehensive listing of Glasgow pantomime venues and productions (click here to view the entire list), however, the only pantomime staged in Glasgow during the 1933/34 season was 'Babes In The Wood', at the Theatre Royal, and featuring veteran Scottish music-hall comedian Tommy Lorne (1890-1935) as its principal star.

Perhaps, therefore, the giant monkey/ape head had appeared in it in the capacity of a guardian to the babes abandoned in the wood, or possibly as a comic bogeyman-type character. This is only speculation on my part, however, as I have been unable to discover any further information concerning either the head itself or the pantomime in which it appeared, but I did succeed in locating a second newspaper photo of it. Dating from the same period, but this time showing the head of a man inside the prop's gaping mouth and a woman standing alongside it, this second photo can be accessed here. I wonder if this eyecatching effigy still survives somewhere, stored away, perhaps, in the vaults of some theatre or stage props provider?

At any rate, we can all be reassured now by the comforting knowledge that somewhere deep within the cloud-shrouded Skull Island of make-believe movie-land, the real King Kong is still striding majestically through his stop-motion domain with his huge head held high, still firmly attached to his mighty neck and shoulders, whereas, tragically, the same cannot be said for John the Baptist's.

Speaking of Skull Island: be sure to click here to read my review of a more recent King Kong-starring monster movie Kong: Skull Island. Finally: to view a complete chronological listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE, and please click HERE to view a complete fully-clickable alphabetical listing of them.

 

An original 1933 publicity poster for King Kong (public domain)

 

 

 

TRACK OF THE MOON BEAST

 

Publicity poster for Track of the Moon Beast (© Richard Ashe/Lizard Productions/Prism Pictures Ince – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

On 21 September 2024, my movie watch was a seriously oddball American sci fi/horror movie from the mid-1970s entitled Track of the Moon Beast, but it was rendered memorable for me by being the first film I can remember seeing that featured a were-lizard as its antagonist!

Directed by Richard Ashe, and produced in 1972 by Lizard Productions Inc, Track of the Moon Beast was originally intended for cinematic release, but was unable to secure a distributor. Instead, its eventual public debut took place on the small screen, when it premiered as a TV movie on 1 June 1976, but in a much-censored shorter version from which certain particularly gory, gruesome scenes featuring the monster killing people had been deleted (the original, uncensored version is apparently no longer available).

Track of the Moon Beast opens with a young mineralogist named Paul Carlson (played by Chase Cordell) in some Albuquerque mountains studying a lunar meteor shower taking place over New Mexico when he is struck in the head by a fragment from one of the meteorites. The fragment lodges in his brain, with wholly unexpected but decidedly dire consequences.

For now, every night when a full moon appears, Paul transforms into a human-sized bipedal lizard-like entity with rampaging, murderous tendencies – this movie's eponymous moon beast – leaving gory carnage as well as very large clawed tracks in its wake. Moreover, it turns out that this bizarre phenomenon has been happening in this region since time immemorial, as revealed in local Native American legends and ancient paintings subsequently made known to Paul by his Native American mentor, Prof. John 'Jonny Longbow' Salinas (Gregorio Sala).

While human, however, Paul has no knowledge of being a lizard and killing people, and for much of the movie no-one else has either, determined though they are to expose the identity of the elusive killer in their midst. Ultimately, however, as is always the case in films like this, Paul's sinister secret is indeed exposed – although to be fair, had it not eventually become public knowledge there wouldn't have been much of a movie!

Yet even worse was soon to come for Paul. After a top-notch NASA brain surgeon x-rays his head prior to a planned operation in order to remove the fragment, Paul is shattered to learn from the surgeon that the operation cannot proceed because the fragment has disintegrated, but with its toxic, unstable extraterrestrial essence having permeated his entire body. Not only could Paul not be cured by conventional medical means, therefore, but also the fragment's deadly legacy would be death – those of further innocent, randomly-selected victims of Paul's reptilian alter ego, but also Paul's own, the latter via sudden self-combustion in the not-too-distant future.

Knowing that he cannot continue like this, Paul flees to the mountains on his motorbike, having made a stark decision, but one that devastates his loyal girlfriend Kathy (Donna Leigh Drake), as well as his friends and colleagues. So, will they reluctantly accept the inevitable, or will they do everything in their power to prevent it? Watch this movie and find out for yourselves!

Silly sci fi is a movie passion of mine, so whereas it was panned by most film critics, I absolutely loved Track of the Moon Beast, even if the on-screen lunar-influenced lizardman looks nothing near as imposing as the spectacular version depicted in this low-budget creature feature's striking publicity posters and official Prism Pictures VHS video's front cover illustration, as included in this present Shuker In MovieLand review. Even so, the make-up for it took 5-6 hours for make-up artist Joe Blasco to create each time that the actor playing the lizardman (Blasco himself) wore it (Blasco was  taller and therefore more visually imposing than Cordell – who only played it in one scene, when Paul transforms into the lizardman while strapped down for observation purposes in hospital).

If you'd like to watch an official trailer on YouTube for Track of the Moon Beast, please click here – or click here if you'd like to watch the entire movie free of charge on there.

Finally: to view a complete chronological listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE, and please click HERE to view a complete fully-clickable alphabetical listing of them.

 

Full cover of the official Prism Pictures VHS video of Track of the Moon Beast (© Richard Ashe/Lizard Productions/Prism Pictures Ince – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

 

SOCIETY

 

Publicity poster for Society (© Brian Yuzna/Wild Street Pictures – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

Many years ago, I turned on the TV one evening and out of sheer boredom watched a movie whose plot was unknown to me, as was its title, because I'd missed the opening credits. It starred Billy Warlock as a seemingly disturbed teenager named Bill (but also called Billy by some characters) who didn't fit in with either his rich Beverly Hills family (mother, father, and sister) or the rest of society there, so much so that he secretly suspected he'd been adopted, and he was now seeing a psychiatrist at his father's behest.

As this mystery – and mysterious – movie progressed, Billy experienced several strange sights involving various locals, including his own sister. Jenny, who in one scene seemed momentarily to contort her body into a bizarre, anatomically-impossible position, as did another young woman in a later scene. But clearly these were simply hallucinations, figments of Billy's fevered imagination...weren't they?

Slowly but surely, however, events became ever more strange, ever more sinister. Something was definitely very wrong here, but nothing prepared me for the unutterably unreal, shockingly surreal climax, in which everything was finally revealed (in every sense too!), and which is unquestionably one of the most eye-popping, jaw-dropping, brain-bursting 'wtf scenes' that I have ever witnessed in any film!

Even if I hadn't revealed its title by heading this present review with it, many of the more informed film aficionados reading the above summary would have already guessed by now the identity of this truly bizarre movie, as there is nothing else out there that is remotely like it, but it took me a long time back in those pre-internet days to do so. Eventually, however, I discovered that it was called Society, was directed by Brian Yuzna in his directorial debut, and was originally released in 1989 by Wild Street Pictures.

On 27 August 2024, around 30 years after watching it all unsuspectingly on TV, I rewatched Society, but this time on DVD, in its full-length, uncut version, and from the very beginning. In so doing, I discovered a scene half-hidden by the opening credits that hints at what to expect, but which I'd not viewed or known about first time round, due to having missed the movie's beginning, thus explaining why the grotesque climactic revelation came as such a shattering surprise. And what is that revelation?

SPOILER ALERT – Read no further if you don't want to know!

Here it is.

After Billy escapes from a hospital where he has been forcibly taken as a supposed corpse (long story…), he returns home to confront his parents once and for all, only to find a sizeable party taking place there – but this is no ordinary party!

To Billy's horror and disbelief, his parents and sister as well as many of the guests, including his psychiatrist, are all engaged in a terrifying orgy, one in which a lot more than mere sex is taking place, although it is true to say that there is certainly plenty of flesh on show!. Incredibly, they are physically melding and melting into each other, a process dubbed shunting by this movie's producers, their bodies' flesh sucking and slurping and squelching and sliding into and onto each other, a vast amorphous abomination of obscene pulsating protoplasm – but even that is not the worst of it.

They are holding one of Billy's friends, David (Tim Bartell), captive, and it becomes swiftly apparent that these shapeless monstrosities previously in human form are intending to devour him, via some hideously intrusive means – and indeed they do. Not for the squeamish, I might add, though amazingly there is literally no blood to be seen anywhere in this stomach-churning scene, but the unholy melding of flesh in all its voyeuristic vision of revulsion is horrific enough for there to be no need for any additional gore.

Moreover, after the doomed David is consumed by these incorporeal nameless ones, who reveal that they constitute an alternate species that has always existed and which devours lower-class humans (this entire movie satirises society living off those it deems are beneath it), Billy is next on the menu, having been captured by his psychiatrist while still in (mostly) human form. Happily, for Billy's sake, however, one of the other guests, who is of this same shape-shifting, shunting species but has not become part of the current abhorrent assimilation, remaining instead in her usual guise as a young woman named Clarisa (Devin DeVasquez), just so happens to have taken a romantic liking to him. So she rescues him, and together with Billy's best friend, Milo (Evan Richards), who has surreptitiously arrived in the hope of assisting him, they flee the house and drive away. The end.

Or is it? Because here is a very strange thing.

When I watched Society for the first time, roughly three decades ago on TV, I distinctly recall that while in this house of horror, Billy had covertly tampered with its gas supply, and that as they drove away into the distance at the end, the house suddenly exploded – a fitting fate for the revolting life-form(s) inside it. Yet no such scene was featured in the full-length DVD version that I watched in August, nor is it present in a version presently viewable on YouTube (see later). But this is not all.

The very next day after watching it on DVD, I mentioned having done so to an extremely knowledgeable film buff friend, John, who remarked without any prompting from me whatsoever that he particularly remembered the finale "when the house blows up"! Needless to say, therefore, he was most surprised when I told him that although I remembered it too, this scene seems no longer to exist. So as it appears unlikely that we both independently imagined an identical false ending, what has happened to the house-exploding one? I have researched this mystery online, yet can find no mention anywhere of the house exploding. Another example of the Mandela Effect? (Click here for more movie-related info concerning this anomaly presented and discussed by me.)

The body-shunting scene is a truly gruesome sight to behold (and if you don't believe me, click here if you dare, to watch a segment of it on YouTube; incidentally, this segment is labelled on there as 'Society Ending', but it's not, because the escape of Billy, Milo, and Clarisa isn't included). Nevertheless, it is also an incredible feat of on-screen special effects, including extensive prosthetics, and was achieved by internationally-renowned Japanese sfx/make-up supremo Joji Tani – or, as he is much better known to his legion of fans globally, Screaming Mad George. He has designed and devised make-up and special effects for many significant fantasy and sci fi movies, including Big Trouble In Little China, Predator, some of the Nightmare On Elm Street and Silent Night films (click here for my review of the first Elm Street entry), The Bite (reviewed by me here), and Progeny, plus many more.

A sequel movie, provisionally entitled Society 2: Body Modification, was in development as of 2013, but nothing more has apparently been heard of it for quite some time now. However, after acquiring the comic-book rights to Society, two sequels in comic-book format were published in 2002 and 2003 respectively by Rough Cut Comics.

Would I recommend this film? If you enjoy singularly grotesque, gross-out, bizarre, macabre, and totally off-the-wall comedy/horror flicks of the indisputably crazy kind, the chances are that you're gonna love it! Conversely, let's just say that if you don't like body-horror fests featuring gallons of glutinous shunting slime and semi-fluid melding flesh, Society may not be the movie for you!

But don't take my word for it – click here to view an official Society trailer on YouTube; or click here to watch the entire movie, as it is currently free to watch on YouTube.

Finally: to view a complete chronological listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE, and please click HERE to view a complete fully-clickable alphabetical listing of them.

 

THE PRIMEVALS

 

A publicity poster for The Primevals, highlighting the yeti (© David Allen/Castel Film Romania/Full Moon Entertainment – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

The stop-motion monster/sci fi movie that I watched on 5 August 2024 was a staggering 55 years in the making from original concept to eventual release last year. Thankfully, however, it took me less than a day from discovering it online on 4 August to watching it on 5 August, and what an incredible treat it was!

Directed and co-written by the veteran stop-motion film and TV animator David Allen (who had also created in 1968 the short presentation film Raiders of the Stone Ring from which this feature-length movie ultimately evolved), and released in 2023 by Full Moon Entertainment, The Primevals opens with the killing in Nepal of a huge and highly aggressive yeti by a group of sherpas, assisted by a timely avalanche. But after its enormous carcase is successfully smuggled into the United States, and as a spectacular mounted specimen is publicly displayed to great acclaim, a scientific expedition led by anthropological expert Prof. Claire Collier (played by Juliet Mills) is swiftly assembled.

Its team includes one of her ex-postgraduate students, Matt Connor (Richard Joseph Paul), whose controversial PhD thesis had lately been rejected because it had dared to propose that the yeti was a real, undiscovered species (as this new discovery has now sensationally confirmed), not a myth (as mainstream zoologists had always traditionally deemed it to be). And when the exotically-named Rondo Montana (Leon Russom), a both burly and brainy Indiana Jonesian ex-big-game hunter, is hired as their guide, tracker, and bodyguard, the team duly treks through the Nepalese Himalayas in the hope of observing and possibly even capturing a living yeti.

They also wish to discover an answer to the riddle of why their preserved yeti's brain contains a deep, mysterious lesion, as if something – or someone – had cut through it but without killing the creature.

What they do discover, however, is beyond their wildest dreams – and nightmares. Namely, a hidden prehistoric realm populated not only by yetis as well as by primitive hairy pithecanthropine hominids but also by a race of reptilian aliens whose spacecraft had crash-landed here 100,000 years ago, when they were much more advanced in form and benevolent in behaviour than they are now. For due to their subsequent experiments here on Earth with gene splicing in a bid to improve their form in order to survive more effectively in this chilly montane climate, they inadvertently transformed themselves into the cruel, savage, retrogressive reptiles that they are today.

So much so, in fact, that they capture yetis, subject their brains to laser-like rays that turn them hyper-belligerent, and then stage horrific gladiatorial bouts in a specially-constructed arena for their own sadistic entertainment, in which a brain-frazzled yeti is pitted against captured pithecanthropines – the poor doomed proto-humans only lasting as long as it takes the yeti to smash them into pulp with one fist, i.e. not very long at all.

But what happens to the scientific team when they too are captured by these loathsome lizard-men and released into the arena as a maddened yeti's latest opponents? I'll say no more, so that you can enjoy finding out for yourself when you watch – as watch you must! – this marvelous movie.

 

A second publicity poster for The Primevals, highlighting the reptilian aliens (© David Allen/Castel Film Romania/Full Moon Entertainment – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

Its plot is certainly fantastical, but equally it provides plenty of adventure and escapist fun. Also, it is one of the very few sci fi movies that I can recall in which extraterrestrial aliens and cryptozoological creatures both appear, making it doubly interesting to connoisseurs of the controversial. Happily, therefore, the stop-motion reptilian aliens and yetis (supplemented by some animatronics and puppetry in certain scenes) are absolutely superb throughout – Ray Harryhausen would have definitely approved. Indeed, the entire movie is redolent of his own much-loved First Men In The Moon and The Valley of Gwangi stop-motion film classics.

Tragically, however, David Allen, who had originally conceived this movie back in the late 1960s, and had tenaciously weathered as its director its seemingly unending gestation period throughout the remainder of his life, never lived to enjoy his cinematic labour of love finally being officially released in Canada during 2023, and a year later in the United States. Instead, he had died from cancer in 1999, aged just 54, but he had completed filming the live-action scenes in Romania and most of the stop-motion ones in 1994, so he'd at least been able to see the movie in virtually finished form.

What caused such a huge delay to the movie's progression after Allen's death were finance problems and seeking a company sufficiently interested in it to provide the extensive backing and publicity that such an ambitious, enterprising project required, resulting in it being shelved, beginning a production-hell hiatus that winded up lasting roughly 20 years. But after fellow producer/director Charles Band's Full Moon Entertainment stepped into the breach (Band was a longstanding friend and admirer of Allen's work, and in the 1990s had agreed to become this movie's producer), these issues were ultimately resolved, with the final stop-motion scenes being filmed in 2022 following a successful online fundraising campaign launched by Band in 2018 raising US $40,000 to finance their production – overseen by this movie's original special-effects expert, Chris Endicott.

Worth noting, incidentally, is that in addition to the standard version of this movie, a special extended director's cut, 'The David Allen Version', containing an extra seven minutes of footage, has also been produced. Of particular interest is that various additional prehistoric animals that were storyboarded but did not finally appear in the standard version are animated into this extended one, which includes, fot example, a scene featuring the team fleeing from a dinosaur-like monster.

The Primevals has only just been officially released on DVD and Blu-Ray, but for those wishing to view this movie immediately there are actually two separate full uploads of it presently on DailyMotion that you can watch and download free and legally for personal viewing if you use DM's own downloader. Click here, therefore, to access one of these uploads, the one that I watched and thoroughly enjoyed. Or, for a tantalizing taster, click here to watch on YouTube an official trailer for The Primevals.

Certainly, if you adore as I do the superb stop-motion monsters from the golden Harryhausen-led era of cryptozoology-/mythology-themed creature features, you will definitely not want to miss watching this glorious homage to those timeless, iconic movies, that's for sure!

Finally: to view a complete chronological listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE, and please click HERE to view a complete fully-clickable alphabetical listing of them.

 

A third publicity poster for The Primevals, featuring both the yeti and the reptilian aliens (© David Allen/Castel Film Romania/Full Moon Entertainment – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

 

JURASSIC WORLD: FALLEN KINGDOM

 

Publicity poster for Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, the second movie in the Jurassic World film trilogy (© J.A. Bayona/Steven Spielberg/Amblin  Entertainment/Legendary Pictures/The Kennedy-Marshall Company/Perfect World Pictures/Universal Pictures – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis  for educational/review purposes only)

I launched this present blog of mine, Shuker In MovieLand, on 27 July 2020, but for quite some time prior to then I'd been posting on my Facebook home page various accounts that I'd written about movies watched by me lately. Some of these accounts were only very short, little more than micro-reviews, but certain others were longer and more detailed. I was reading through all of these recently, and it occurred to me that although I'd written them some years ago, before my blog existed, there was no reason why I couldn't, or shouldn't, post them here now, with the longer accounts reworked into full reviews, and selections of the shorter ones presented together as single multi-movie posts. So here is one of the longer ones, presenting in expanded form my original take on what subsequently proved to be the second installment from the second film trilogy within the blockbuster Jurassic Park/World movie franchise.

On 7 June 2018, I went to what was then my local cinema (now closed) and watched Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, the second movie in the Jurassic World film trilogy – the latter cinematic trio serving as a sequel to the original Jurassic Park film trilogy inspired by American sci fi author Michael Crichton's eponymous 1990 novel. I'd been waiting with great anticipation for ages for this movie to be released, so that I coul finally watch it, and I certainly wasn't disappointed.

Directed by J.A. Bayona, with Steven Spielberg as its executive producer, co-written by Colin Trevorrow (who directed the other two movies in the Jurassic World trilogy), and released in 2018 by Universal Pictures, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom sees the return of Chris Pratt as velociraptor handler/whisperer Owen Grady, and Bryce Dallas Howard as Claire Dearing, formerly the operations manager of the dinosaur theme park Jurassic World before the mayhem of its genetically-engineered living dinosaurs and pterosaurs loose and on the rampage, as dramatically portrayed in the previous movie, Jurassic World (2015), had forced its permanent closure. The abandoned theme park, or what is now left of it, is situated on the isolated Central American island of Isla Nublar, uninhabited by humans since the park's closure, and where the escapee dinosaurs and other resurrected Mesozoic monsters are able to roam free, undisturbed, unthreatened – but not for much longer.

The island's volcano is threatening to erupt, and with devastating force, enough to make the Krakatoa eruption look like a hiccup, and which will definitely destroy all life on the island (and quite probably the island itself), including, therefore, the dinosaurs. Moreover, as they exist nowhere else on Earth (yes. I'm excluding birds from all such considerations!), this will result in a second dinosaur mass extinction, on a far smaller scale but just as comprehensive as the one that wiped them out the first time, at the end of the Cretaceous Period, roughly 65 million years ago.

 

Chris Pratt as Owen Grady, Blue the velociraptor, and my official Jurassic World franchise 2017 Mattel 12-inch-tall Owen Grady action figure (© J.A. Bayona/ Colin Trevorrow/Steven Spielberg/Amblin  Entertainment/Legendary Pictures/The Kennedy-Marshall Company/Universal Pictures / © Mattel – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis  for educational/review purposes only)

To make matters even worse for the imperilled dinos, a United States Senate committee votes against US Government involvement in any plan to rescue them from their doomed island homeland before the volcano erupts. However, a ray of hope appears upon the horizon when Jurassic Park founder Dr John Hammond's now immensely rich former partner Sir Benjamin Lockwood (James Cromwell) invites Claire to his vast mansion where he and his assistant Eli Mills (Rafe Spall) discuss with her their bold plan to rescue a representative selection of the dinosaurs and relocate them to a new island sanctuary.

Inspired by this exciting news, Claire agrees to help them, by making available her knowledge of the park's systems as well as of the dinosaurs themselves. She also recruits Owen to come on board, particularly with regard to capturing Blue, the last surviving velociraptor, whom he had reared and trained, and who therefore trusts him.

However, there is treachery afoot, as they subsequently realise when they reach Isla Nublar and discover that the dinosaurs being trapped there are destined to be transported not to any island sanctuary but instead to the Lockwood mansion, where Lockwood's young orphaned granddaughter Maisie (Isabella Sermon) overhears a mysterious auctioneer named Eversoll (Toby Jones) secretly discussing plans to sell the dinosaurs to the highest bidders in a private auction to be held there. But what if any of the winning bidders choose to use their purchased dinosaurs as bio-weapons – and who at the Lockwood mansion is behind all of this skullduggery anyway? Furthermore, it turns out that the dinosaurs are not the only genetically-engineered entities in the mansion – isn't that right, Maisie?? Deep waters indeed!

The CGI dinosaurs are even more spectacular than in previous movies within this franchise, and I certainly will not be losing any sleep over their absence of feathers or any other palaeontological inconsistencies. If I can suspend disbelief to watch middle-aged men performing incredible stunts that defy physical reality and gravity in equal measure (yes, Tom Cruise, I'm thinking of the Mission: Impossible films as I write this), I can certainly do the same regarding any dinosaurian discrepancies and deviations from current mainstream opinion within the palaeo-community.

 

Publicity poster for Jurassic World, the first movie in the Jurassic World film trilogy (© Colin Trevorrow/Steven Spielberg/Amblin  Entertainment/Legendary Pictures/The Kennedy-Marshall Company/Universal Pictures – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis  for educational/review purposes only)

 

 

My Jurassic Park trilogy and Jurassic World  trilogy  complete DVD collection plus my Jurassic Park trilogy steelbook edition (© Steven Spielberg/Joe Johnston/Colin Trevorrow/J.A. Bayone/Amblin  Entertainment/Legendary Pictures/The Kennedy-Marshall Company/Perfect World Pictures/Universal Pictures – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis  for educational/review purposes only)

And speaking of the dinosaurs in this movie: whereas in previous Jurassic Park/World films the dinosaurs were breathtaking and dramatic, in this much darker, horror-driven entry, however, the carnivorous dinos in particular are little short of demonic at times, fully justifying this film's 12A certificate in the UK. Small children may indeed have nightmares from watching it, especially in relation to one particular scene, featuring Maisie cowering in her locked bedroom as a genetically-engineered wholly novel dino-horror called the Indoraptor that is positively fiendish in both form and behaviour seeks – and ultimately achieves – entry into her room. I'll say no more, but it's decidedly creepy, even Gothic in places.

In summary: the plot of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is nothing if not eventful, providing a toxic combination of megalomania and financial greed, plus a natural catastrophe thrown in for good measure, yielding a deadly game in which the dinos are unwitting pawns.

As for its ending: back when I first watched this movie in 2018, it seemed not so much an ending as a launch-pad for what could well be an unlimited number of sequels. Indeed, there is a brief but memorable post-credits scene that provides a very clear indication of the directions that such sequels might pursue.

With the subsequent completion of this trilogy by the release in 2022 of a third, concluding movie, Jurassic World Dominion, however, this might no longer be the case. Having said that, film franchises that have been as financially successful as this one (its six movies have collectively grossed approximately 6 billion US dollars at the box office alone!) have a tendency not to lay down and die all that easily, so who knows? It may yet be that the dinosaurs are not the only ones to be resurrected!

 

My three official Jurassic World franchise Mattel pehistoric animal action figures: my 42-inch-long Blue the velociraptor, my 30-inch-long giant mosasaur sea-lizard (the mosasaur escapes from its pool into the ocean at the beginning of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom), and my 32-inch-long Brachiosaurus (the Brachiosaurus meets a tragic end in this movie) (© J.A. Bayona/ Colin Trevorrow/Steven Spielberg/Amblin  Entertainment/Legendary Pictures/The Kennedy-Marshall Company/Perfect World Pictures/Universal Pictures / © Mattel – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis  for educational/review purposes only)

 

 

My Uni-Amblin official  Jurassic World and The Lost World: Jurassic Park metal pencil cases (© Colin Trevorrow/Steven Spielberg/Amblin  Entertainment/Legendary Pictures/The Kennedy-Marshall Company/Perfect World Pictures/Universal Pictures / © Uni & Amblin – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis  for educational/review purposes only)

Incidentally, I should warn you that certain trailers for Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom that have been highly visible online ever since its release actually offer a very slanted (even imho a quite deceptive) idea of what happens in the main part of the film. So if you still haven’t watched this movie yet but plan to do so, don't be misled by any such trailers into thinking that you already know what will be happening.

What does happen is a dynamic tour de force of escapist action, adventure, and suspense, supplemented by the stirring music of John Williams, and populated by a host of awesome CGI dinos (and also some animatronic model ones for certain close-up scenes), all of which I enjoyed immensely, juat like I did when last year I watched the above-mentioned third movie in this trilogy, Jurassic World Dominion (2022). And yes indeed, courtesy of this latter film a feathered non-avian dinosaur finally appears in the Jurassic Park/World franchise! Was it worth the wait? Be sure to watch Jurassic World Dominion and judge for yourselves!

Meanwhile, please click here to watch on YouTube an official Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom trailer (one, moreover, that is suitably dramatic but thankfully does not contain any of the ambiguous excerpts alluded to by me earlier here).

Finally: to view a complete chronological listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE, and please click HERE to view a complete fully-clickable alphabetical listing of them.

 

Publicity poster for Jurassic World Dominion, the third movie in the Jurassic World film trilogy (© Colin Trevorrow/Steven Spielberg/Amblin  Entertainment/The Kennedy-Marshall Company/Perfect World Pictures/Universal Pictures – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis  for educational/review purposes only)