Director: Stewart Raffill
91 minutes (15) 1994
101 Films Blu-ray region B
[Released 8th February]
Rating: 6/10
Review by Steven Hampton
There’s obviously some genuine potential here for cult comedy success, as if the ultimate cheerleader-loves-dinosaur movie could really be anything else, and this proudly answers the question ‘what can you do when someone offers you the use of a robot monster?’ ‘Why not make a movie?’ Some days you have to be very quick! How about a high school rom-com adventure, crossed with a Frankenstein parody? ‘I Was A Teenage Dinosaur’..?
Denise Richards
cruises through bimbo routine as Tammy whose boyfriend is love-struck
football-jock Michael (Paul Walker, years before The Fast And The Furious), mauled by a lion. Campy mad Doctor
Wachenstein (Terry Kiser, playing dead in Weekend
At Bernie’s) and his sexy nurse Helga (Ellen Dubin, ‘Giggerota’ in TV
series Lexx), might be two failed
graduates from Herbert West’s medical teaching college, as they implant the
traumatised young man’s brain into their animatronic beast.
Stewart Raffill is best known, probably, for directing spoofy space-opera Ice Pirates, and time-travel mystery The Philadelphia Experiment (both 1984). The on-screen title of this movie actually reads Tanny & The Teenage T-Rex. Credits also say Richards’ plays Tanny not Tammy, but never mind all that because such minor changes are practically common if not essential for marketing low-budget movies.
When the cyber-saur goes on a rampage, severed heads are rolling about, as other tragic victims are crushed underfoot, or disembowelled. Who’s up for a party massacre? Trashy gore effects and silly jokes abound and dino-bot uses charades gestures to communicate. Tam confides in the sheriff’s gay son Byron, who proves helpful at robbing the mortuary for a replacement body, but choosing a new form is not an easy decision for a desperado. Meanwhile, pursued by cop cars, Tam rides off into sunset.
This restored version includes all of the gory scenes previously cut from an original video release. Clearly, it’s a weaker shocker without so many gruesome make-ups, but most of this movie’s comedy remains effective because its central images of a disembodied brain, and the romanticised creature are quite bizarre enough to be modestly entertaining. It’s almost worthy of comparison to varied sci-fi horrors in Larry Cohen’s oeuvre.
Extras:
- Commentary track by Stewart Raffill and producer Diane Kirman
- Blood, Brains, And A Teenage T-Rex - interview with Raffill (22 minutes)
- A Blast From The Past - interview with Denise Richards (11 minutes)
- Having The Guts - interview with actor Sean Whalen (12 minutes)
- A Testicular Stand-Off - interview with actor George Pilgrim (25 minutes)
- Full-length PG-13 version of Tammy And The T-Rex (standard definition, 82 minutes)
