Highly Overrated But Still Good

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

I was pretty excited when I found Carnosaur on VHS at the local outlet.I don't know what I was expecting.I don't think I was expecting anything GREAT but I wasn't expecting anything bad either.It was more bad than anything.I read on IMDb that there's a part 2 & 3.After watching this movie I can't believe they made a sequel & even more amazing, a third.I LOVE bad movies so if I had a chance I'd watch them though.If I didn't, I know I wouldn't watch them at all.I read a few reviews saying Carnosaur is just a Jurassic Park rip off since they both came out at the same time but I say who knows? who cares? I HATED Jurassic Park & Carnosaur wasn't all that great either but if I had to choose between the 2, I'd have to go with Carnosaur.At least Carnosaur was entertaining enough to keep me awake.When Jurassic Park 1st came out, I fell asleep in the theater.The thing that surprised me the most was the ending.It was pretty shocking & came out of nowhere.Maybe I have to give Carnosaur another shot 1 of these days to appreciate it but it won't be anytime soon

Not fun to watch. Everything seems to take place on a poorly lit stage. People die horrible deaths- not because the gore and make-up effects are done well but because the make-up and effects are done poorly, people get sort of smeared to death, its like the dinosaurs despite have claws and teeth, for some reason instead secrete a powerful enzyme to break down the meat. Also the acting sucks. Probably should have lead with that, but yeah, the humans paid to live out on stage did a crappy job. The story, considering that its a half-assed ripoff of Jurassic Park, is absent, like the story called in sick and somebody else has gotta try to cover two departments, better get H.R. in on this. This movie has a real purpose but I don't know what it is.

This is based upon the book by Harry Adam Night which was a pen name and author and critic John Brosnan . Brosnan wrote Future Tense one of the most readable books on the history of science fiction cinema ever written . He also wrote a highly regarded column in the SF magazine Starburst which over the years degenerated in to a soapbox where Brosnan stated his hatred for both STAR TREK and the works of James Herbert at every opportunity . No one can state enough hatred for STAR TREK in my view but it's unfair to slag off Herbert . His books are never going to win the Nobel prize but they are entertaining for what they are and he also brings a back story to most of his characters even if they exist only to be killed off later in the chapter Knowing this I wonder if there's a bit of post modernism to Brosnan literature . Even the name Harry Adam Knight ( HAK ! ) conjures up a tongue in cheek name . Certainly I'm left with the impression that HAK is trying to emulate Herbert as a homage . You can see characters getting a brief bio then after that their function to the plot becomes dinosaur food in much the same way as Herbert likes feeding his characters to a swarm of giant mutant ratsThe problem is it's difficult to realise swarms of mutant rats on screen and the problem is dinosaurs are even more difficult to realise . Steven Spielberg managed it in 1993 but let's not kid ourselves he had unlimited technical know how and expense to do so . In this film there's only one way dinosaurs can be brought to screen and that's via puppetry , usually glove puppets which gives the impression Rod Hull's on a murder spree with reptiles Does this make CARNOSAUR a bad movie ? Not necessarily . Certainly it's a badly made movie that'll have you laughing out loud at some scenes and much of the humour doesn't give the impression that it's really intentional and therefor doesn't qualify as post modernist but for those people who sometimes enjoy horror B movies with mad scientists and situations that don't themselves too seriously it's an enjoyable waste of 82 minutes

"Carnosaur" is a film that can probably blame its obviously low budget on it being a missed opportunity. This movie contains many good elements including a very wonderful performance by Academy Award-nominee Diane Ladd. About half of the time, this movie kept me entertained in its own unique way and the other half of the time I was bored to tears. Thus, I give it two stars out of four. Half and half. Sounds fair to me."Carnosaur" is loosely based on a novel by John Brosnan about a mad scientist (Diane Ladd) who is disgusted by the human race's destruction of the planet and plans to wipe it out with a killer virus while genetically engineering dinosaurs so that they can take over the planet once again.I was really surprised that film critic Gene Siskel, who had given the Oscar-winning masterpiece "The Silence of the Lambs" (1991) a negative review found this movie appealing and gave it a marginally positive review. But now that I've actually seen the film, I can agree with him part way. I still give it a negative review, but I do see why he might have enjoyed it. First of all, like I mentioned earlier, Diane Ladd plays a terrific villain in this movie. Even though she was given some awfully poor lines to act on, she somehow managed to keep me interested and even a bit frightened whenever she was on the screen. I'll say this; she is a lot more interesting than the dinosaurs in this picture. Perhaps the reason "Carnosaur" was even made was to beat Steven Spielberg's "Jurassic Park" (1993) to the big screen and make a little cash, which it did despite negative reviews from both critics and audience members. The film was made on a low budget and you can tell by the bad acting (excluding Diane Ladd, of course) and the poor special effects. The dinosaurs are seldom convincing at all. They are portrayed using rubber puppets and even though they are shot at night, they do become revealing at times. Sometimes painfully revealing. I also felt that the amount of blood and gore used in this film was way overdone, but that is typical of films of this grade.And there is also one major plot problem in this movie. If the Diane Ladd character wants to wipe out the human race, why not just create the virus and not even bother with the dinosaurs at all? Why go through all the trouble and risk being caught? Of course, the dinosaurs were thrown in one because of the novel source and two to get people interested in seeing the movie, but still it almost seems as though "Carnosaur" would have been better, at least more logical, if there were no dinosaurs in it at all. And it also doesn't make any sense that she only breeds carnivorous dinosaurs and no herbivores. There are some strangely appealing elements to "Carnosaur", much to my surprise, and there are some ludicrous and unbelievably poor elements, as anticipated. It is just too bad I wasn't surprised more while watching this movie. A few re-writes of the script and a slight ante in the budget would have done it wonders.