Billie Morin
This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows
Roy Hart
If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.
Zlatica
One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.
Scott LeBrun
This ultra-cheap time killer stars William Bryant, Wanda Curtis, Douglas Henderson, and Patti Gallagher as a quartet of scientists sent to explore a strange new world that has just entered our solar system, and come in close proximity to Earth. They discover a planet much like Earth, with a lot of flora and fauna. They also find an island populated by so-called "dinosaurs", which do battle with each other before the humans' eyes."King Dinosaur" marked the directing debut for Bert I. Gordon, soon to make a name for himself with many "giant thing on the loose" sci-fi thrillers. It's therefore interesting as a somewhat historical curio, with not so special but still amusing effects, which basically consist of photographically enlarging various animals - iguanas, gators, ants, snakes, etc. The movie consists of a lot of stock footage, a very nondescript cast (the little honey bear "Joe" is the most endearing character in this bunch), and mucho exposition to start with, narrated by Marvin Miller. It doesn't have much of what viewers could consider highlights, other than Bryants' character wrestling with a gator and the epic giant reptile title fights near the end. (Not to mention an utterly *ridiculous* resolution.)This passable if not inspired schlock was scripted by Tom Gries (who went on to bigger and better things like "Will Penny" and "Breakheart Pass"), who'd made *his* directing debut on Gordons' first production, "Serpent Island".Five out of 10.
Coventry
Although he's universally (and righteously) considered as one of the worst directors in history, I admit to be a fan of the notorious B.I.G! No, not the murdered gangster-rapper, but the writer/director/producer of several inept and incredibly low-budgeted horror and Sci-Fi movies during the 50's, 60's and 70's. "King Dinosaur" was his debut feature in 1955 and it still stands as probably the worst dinosaur movie there is to find (yes, there are a lot more of them than you might think). "King Dinosaur" contains all the bad and laughable elements that the MST3K crowd enjoys so much: horrible acting performances, a thoroughly idiotic script and dumb dialogs, footage that is borrowed from equally bad films, cheap set pieces and small, harmless animals that are ridiculously enlarged in order to look like gigantic menacing creatures. The film nevertheless starts promising and in a typically 1950's manner, with a stern voice-over informing us that an entirely new and never before noticed (!) planet has entered our solar system. Earth has got a new neighbor and all the great intellectual minds agree that this new planet – Nova – has the same inhabitable atmosphere. The good old US of A promptly puts together a space expedition featuring four scientists; two men and two women that are romantically involved. FOUR people, none of whom have any astronaut experience, is apparently enough for the most important mission of all time! When they arrive on Nova, it actually looks like they accidentally landed somewhere in Montana. There are forests, lakes, deer and honey bears. One of the crew members even wrestles with a crocodile! Only around two-thirds into the film, half of the mission's crew heads out to a volcanic island on the planet and comes face to face with the titular King Dinosaur. Two-thirds! Don't name your film "King Dinosaur" if the dinosaur is only a footnote in the whole stupid thing! Anyways, the character states that he resembles a T- Rex, but in fact it's an ordinary lizard filmed through a magnifying glass. He's supposed to be a relentless monster, but it's a damn lizard and they can't act, so he actually looks kind of cute and completely unaware of what he's doing. As said, this is one hopelessly inept hodgepodge of a film. 50's Sci-Fi flicks, as silly and cheap they generally are, have a certain enchantment value. "King Dinosaur", however, has no such thing whatsoever. It's a dumb ensemble of moronic plotting, unsympathetic characters and rubbish special effects. I would still warmly recommended it to bad cinema fanatics, though, because there are too many idiotic details to list! And at least the film is never boring, like so many of its contemporary genre colleagues.
MartinHafer
Note: Anyone who is sensitive and dislikes the idea of watching reptiles rip each other apart should NOT watch this film. PETA members in particular are warned! This is a sad excuse for a film, but it is so bad that bad movie buffs might enjoy watching it just to laugh at how bad a bad movie can be. Did I mention it was bad?! The most obvious problem with the film is that the film makers took a ton of stock footage of practically EVERYTHING and strung them together in a "brilliant" attempt to pad the film and stretch it out to just over an hour while doing little actual filming. At the beginning of the movie, tons of stock footage of jet planes, V-2 rockets and military stuff fills the screen. Later, on the "other planet", we are treated to even more stock shots--most of which are nature clips that are sloppily integrated and rather irrelevant. It's made worse when the actors(?) all react rather poorly to these wonderful delights! Uggghh! I don't think I've seen another film (other than documentaries) that used so much stock footage.The film is about an expedition to a new planet that just appears out of the blue and drifts into an orbit near the Earth. How convenient, huh?! The four best and brightest(???????) that the USA had to offer would seem to indicate that people in the 1950s were all idiots, as again and again they do stupid things that anyone with a brain or training would not do. First, they explore so far from their ship that they get lost. Second, at night when one of them is supposed to be keeping watch, he and his hot babe go out in the darkness and he nearly gets torn to pieces by one of hundreds of animals that look EXACTLY like those on Earth. Third, every time anything bad happens, the blonde lady begins screaming or crying hysterically--even though she's supposed to be a respected scientist. Fourth, although they are to briefly survey the planet and return to Earth, they go way out of their way--many miles and into dangerous situations that they should have avoided. And, speaking of dangerous situations, the dinosaurs from the title are such scary monsters as iguanas and baby alligators that are filmed up close fighting. Oooh, scary stuff, huh?! To make things worse, the film makers actually toss the iguana onto the gator and just let them fight for real!! That poor iguana!! Even though in the film it supposedly wins this fight with the gator, you can clearly see the gator tearing into the iguana's flesh. There are also fur-covered elephants and giant armadillos (yikes).Although most of the planet seems awfully nice (except for the island filled with monstrous reptiles), the team's response to these discoveries is to nuke the island! Yes, I said nuke it!! I think the film makers chose to do this because, frankly, they had footage of a nuclear explosion (even though there was a hair stuck on the lens) and couldn't resist using it--even if it made no sense!! And the ending credits appear over top the mushroom cloud as the film then fades! Overall, a truly awful film--and one that even Ed Wood would have probably disliked! By the way, I could be wrong, but I think the 'pet' they discovered on the planet was a kinkajou.
lemon_magic
OK, never mind that this film seems to be 30 minutes of actual movie time, padded with another 33 minutes of stock footage (some of it swiped from 'One Million BC') process shots and traveling mattes. Never mind the 'emotional scientists', especially the blond housewife who goes to pieces so often she should have come pre-assembled like a box of Legos. Never mind the brain-dead science on display, where Planet Nova appears to be exactly like Wisconsin, except for the lemurs, giant bees, rubber alligators, and a lake with an island full of dinosaurs. Never mind that at one point, the blond lady says, "Maybe we don't need to keep watch. Joe (the lemur) seems to be pretty good at shouting alarms!"I can get past all that, in the name of 50's sci-fi conventions and low budgets. But 5-6 minutes from the end, after one couple has rescued the other from the cave where they were trapped, and the two 'dinosaurs' are wrestling with each other, the blond towheaded guy says, and I am pretty sure I got this right: "I brought the Atomic Bomb. I think this would be a good time to use it!"So not only do the scientists nuke the island and kill everything on it for no good reason (the friggin dinosaurs never leave the island, and the party could have simply rowed away from the island and never seen the dinos again)...they set the timer for 30 MINUTES and trust they can get across the island ON FOOT past all the other dangerous wildlife, get into their rubber rafts, paddle them across the lake to the other shore and find shelter. In THIRTY FREAKING MINUTES!?!? I realize this is just an excuse to try to inject some suspense into the ending, but for crying out loud! That timer clearly could have been for several hours, and the scientists could have STROLLED back, instead of running in a panic for their lives. (There is a hilarious shot in the rubber raft as they near shore where the towhead appears to be repeatedly shoving the blond lady back down on her face for no coherent reason.) I feel bad for the four actors in this silly exercise in White Manifest Destiny. A couple of them went on the do a lot more work, but working on this thing must have seemed like a death-knell to their careers at the time. And if there was any justice, Bert Gordon wouldn't have had a career after this movie either.1 star added to the deserved 'awful' rating for sheer goofiness, and also for the naiveté and optimism that permeates the film.
