Only one film franchise about killer dinosaurs became successful and popular in the 1990s, and it most certainly was not Carnosaur. Back then, the timing seemed unfortunate for this now-infamous Roger Corman production; Steven Spielberg’s megahit-in-the-making was hot on its tail and, of course, Jurassic Park eventually went on to overshadow Adam Simon’s own story of engineered dinos. As Cormanites know, Corman was not about to let some bad press stand in the way; Carnosaur used the “mockbuster” accusations for its own gain. And more importantly, all the eyes on Corman’s cash-in gave its source material a much-needed second lease on life.
Carnosaur was boldly put in theaters a week before Jurassic Park, however, John Brosnan’s novel actually predated Michael Crichton’s by a good six years. Written under the pseudonym of Harry Adam Knight, 1984’s Carnosaur was well ahead of its time and, unfortunately, fell through the cracks after flopping. The dino craze that Brosnan foresaw at the time, thanks to bad advice from his colleague, didn’t occur until the next decade. Nevertheless, imagine the author’s excitement when his work was optioned for a film, in 1991, after practically becoming as extinct as its subject matter. The one problem, as Brosner later learned, was the adaptation was in name only; director Simon took just the title from the novel and left most of everything else untouched.
The ‘93 Carnosaur, which was the result of a major rewrite after Corman was unsatisfied with Bronsnan’s personally penned screenplay, isn’t entirely removed from its basis; they both deal in very bad science and the misguided resurrection of dinosaurs. Simon’s undertaking, though, was far more deranged than what Bronsnan conceived. Which, if you’ve read the novel, seems impossible to do. Even still, Simon cooked up a plot wicked enough for the pulpiest of pulp paperbacks. Rather than a wealthy madman hoping his creations would seize control of the planet on their own, the film introduced an equally unhinged mastermind — played by Diane Ladd, mother of Laura Dern — whose endgame rested on a virus that made women pregnant with dinosaurs. Brosnan may not have hatched anything as twisted and complicated as that, but his own story of run-amok dinos isn’t exactly light reading either.
Image: Riding in cars with dinosaurs leads to carnage in Carnosaur.
The late Brosnan, an Australian author whose career was based in England, set his tale in sleepy Cambridgeshire, unlike the film which took place in Nevada, America. The carnage here begins one fateful July after a tiger escapes from a local zoo of sorts, and supposedly kills several residents before she’s euthanized. A young and determined reporter named David Pascal doesn’t buy the story, and after some chase and obstacles, he discovers the culprit was indeed an exotic creature — just not one he could have ever imagined. The big man around these parts, the eccentric Lord Darren Penward, runs a private zoo on his estate, and of all his rare animals, his secret dinosaurs are his most prized possessions. That theory of him finding these living fossils in Africa proves to be false; Penward instead used surviving DNA to restructure common chickens. And as Pascal and his ex-girlfriend Jenny Stamper soon learn, Penward plans on unleashing the dinosaurs all over the world, in hopes of returning the planet to them.
Brosnan didn’t serve up any dark government conspiracies or David Cronenberg-inspired body horrors like Simon did, but instead tapped into his affection for James Bond and crafted a highly entertaining world-domination plot worthy of 007. The character of Lord Penward even comes off like a Bond villain, albeit more insane. And as out-there and diabolical as the novel revealed itself to be, it also offered unassuming action and fun. Simon, as ambitious as he was, did the opposite and manifested a sophisticated but monotone story that really would have benefitted from a breather or two. Meanwhile, Brosnan’s Carnosaur accentuates its own authentic stab at ghastly creature horror with effective yet never-undermining bits of humor.
As with so many other paperback horrors from that bygone era, Carnosaur doesn’t skimp on the bloody violence or lurid descriptions of sex. That first facet is as consistent as it is gruesome. Brosnan also didn’t spare anyone from the brutality of Penward’s pets; a nine-year-old and her pony are each ravaged within the first chapter by an unseen predator. The splatter-show that follows is no less unapologetic and cold-blooded once the story steps on the gas and does the inevitable. Just like the ‘90s Tor-published reprint of the novel states with its eye-catching blurb, Penward’s “vengeance-hungry nymphomaniac wife” lets loose those abominations after she’s spurned by her newest side-piece Pascal. The journalist got himself mixed up with the Lord’s hypersexual and, as it turns out, similarly deranged spouse when seeking answers about the initial attacks, and if not for his rather cruel rejection, perhaps Mrs. Penward would have delayed her freeing of the beasts. Although, the sanguinary chaos was always on the itinerary; Jane Penward was, in fact, directly responsible for the first killings, and she was willing to do whatever it took to get her neglectful husband’s attention. Even if that meant sentencing everyone else to death.
Image: The T. Rex in Carnosaur.
In contrast with the more family-friendly nature of the Jurassic films, Carnosaur is aimed at adults. On top of the sexy parts — the physical component of Pascal and Lady Penward’s affair is told with lascivious detail — is a long trail of mean-spirited and over-the-top dino-caused fatalities that would have been exquisite to see on the big screen, had the adaptation been done faithfully and if money wasn’t an issue. The new script was, in some part, done to avoid a more potentially expensive production. Brosnan’s novel is teeming with set pieces and venue changes, all of which would have required the budget of something like Jurassic Park. Upon Lady Penward’s act of retaliation, one she pays dearly for in the end, the book sings with slaughterous abandon. A plesiosaur systematically munches on the young attendees of a boating party, random characters are picked off by various carnivores inside the Penward mansion, and the streets of Cambridgeshire are lined with that good red stuff as the liberated dinosaurs stray wherever they please. Even the protagonist’s ride-or-die love interest doesn’t get off scot-free as Brosnan delivered his unkind epilogue. There’s never a moment of boredom in the original Carnosaur, which can’t be said for its celluloid counterpart.
It goes without saying, Simon’s Carnosaur couldn’t afford to execute its own ideas. The final product was a film Brosner himself called “interesting crap,” and most critics agreed, at least with the “crap” part. And John Carl Buechler did all he could to make the real-time effects and animatronics and puppets look less awful than they were, although he was also up against Corman’s tight shooting schedule. Still and all, Carnosaur did well enough to allow not one but two sequels.
The first of them, Carnosaur 2 (1995), is what many regard as the best of this trilogy, and that’s probably due to its pared-down concept, not to mention improved pacing and camerawork. Director Louis Morneau honed in on the action element of Michael Palmer’s clearly Alien and Aliens-influenced script, and thanks to Morneau’s background in editing, his film goes down a whole lot smoother. It’s not as if Carnosaur 2 had a bigger budget or fancier props to play with either; the sequel cut corners by reusing Buechler’s previous dino molds. The roster of monsters is still limited to just two species — with the Deinonychus now called Velociraptors — yet Morneau used them advantageously. As for Jonathan Winfrey’s Carnosaur 3: Primal Species (1996), it’s a deficient conclusion that looks golden when juxtaposed with 2001’s Raptor, Corman’s slapdash and sleazier quasi-reboot that shamelessly recycled footage from the Carnosaur series.
Chances are, there will never be a proper adaptation of Brosner’s Carnosaur in this lifetime, especially when the Jurassic franchise exists and is still thriving. To anyone who has since made an unrelated dino flick, it must be a headache to be held up to those kinds of standards. Even so, fans of that overlooked novel should find comfort in knowing echoes of Brosner’s vision are felt in the Jurassic films, in particular the more recent installments that themselves have a hard time measuring up to their beloved progenitor.
Buy the official reprint of Carnosaur: The Novel from Valancourt Books.
Tor’s reprint of the Carnosaur novel.
The post ‘Carnosaur’ – Digging Up the ’90s Dinosaur Horror Film That ‘Jurassic Park’ Eclipsed appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.
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