King Dinosaur (1955)

While movies like The Giant Claw and Devil Girl From Mars made me a little mischievously furious as I reviewed them, King Dinosaur was just downright embarrassing. FlickChart rated the 100 lowest ranked Science Fiction Films of the 50’s. King Dinosaur came in at #1, barely beating out The Robot vs. The Aztec Mummy, which is quite an achievement considering the competition. 

Here is the basis for this awful, awful movie. The so-called “science” in this movie is the worst I’ve ever seen. Somehow, someway, and with some sort of mysterious methodology, a new planet has appeared in the Goldilocks Belt of our own Solar System. Yes, and between Earth and Mars! I know this is 1955, but even Galileo knew better in the 1600’s. The scientific narration and explanation at the beginning was so boiler-plate and flat-out inaccurate, complete with irrelevant stock military photos, that I almost ditched this movie right there. However, do not fear, it gets much worse. 

“Astronauts, report to the rocket for blast-off in 5 minutes!” And, off we go to the new planet! These astronauts, who were supposed to be high-tier scientists, were a crew of two men and two women, who looked more suited to go on a Sunday picnic, or their first back-country hiking outing. These Idiots disembark the rocket, on a planet that looks just like Earth (Imagine that!), and immediately started bitching about being tired and hot. And then, and then! It got dark and they got inexplicably lost in the forest…After just a couple of hours of exploring.

So, they have to camp for the night and of course, being Astronauts on a very important space mission, they have absolutely no medical supplies when Ralph stumbles in a ditch and gets mauled by a rubber alligator. You see, Ralph and Blondie decided to get lovey-dovey and strayed away from the other two “scientists” for some privacy. This is important stuff. 

That was just about enough for me. I just let the movie run in my office while I went to pee, grill a couple of hot dogs for supper, and check on my mouse traps in the garage to see if I’d taken a couple more of bird-seed thieving mice off the welfare rolls at my property.  I did hear screams and gunshots and the rapid-healing Ralph was apparently assassinating some giant insect that wandered into camp. The other two nitwits were returning to the camp to scrounge for food, since the rocket ship apparently had no facilities, food or other provisions, forcing these brain-damaged Astronuts to live off the land! And, to mercilessly slaughter every animal that makes a suspicious move!

This film is so bad, and so inept, that they do not even attempt to fabricate a story as to why the spacecraft is so useless, forcing them to camp out on the strange planet that is indistinguishable from being in the woods of Arkansas.  By now, I’m sure everyone is wondering, where are the King Dinosaurs! They must be on the island with a volcano that somehow mysteriously appears. It must be explored, if for nothing else than to make a failed attempt at rescuing this awful movie from itself. 

O.K., I’m back with my hot dogs and this scintillating masterpiece is going down the final stretch, I guess. Dick and Nora embark on a flimsy rubber raft to explore the strange island, while Ralph and Patricia stay back at the camp and make-out like a couple of high school kids at a Drive-In Movie. No, I’m not kidding, and they have adopted a lemur they name Joe as a lookout for snakes and other critters who might interrupt their spit-swapping. But, Joe decides to go with Dick and Nora on the raft! What could this mean? Who cares? Where is the King Dinosaur?

Spoilers Below!

It’s just a blown-up shot of a lizard!

And, another rubber alligator enters the chat!

ZERO/10.0 With The Goatesian Rating Of Fucked Up Film

Special Ruthless Ratings -or- What I learned from this film:

• There is always a film that is worse.
• Was there an atomic blast at the end?
• You will just have to watch this free on Tubi to find out.