Raptor

Roger Corman’s magic (and yes, he produced this) is how he can do something with nothing. He knows how to make entertainment, even though it’s schlock entertainment. He creates entertaining bad films and that shines in the Carnosaur films. T

Only a film manufactured with sincerity and no originality could have resulted in such a funny mess of near-exploitation silliness.

**_‘B’ dino-horror is competent, but same-old, same-old_** Some kind of vicious animal escapes a bio-research installation in remote SoCal and grisly corpses start mounting up. The Sheriff and an animal expert try to figure out what’s going on (Eric Roberts and Melissa Brasselle), which leads them to the mysterious facility. Corbin Bernsen plays the proverbial mad doctor. "Raptor" (2001) is a ‘B’ creature feature that mixes “Jurassic Park” (1993), “Godzilla” (1998), “Aliens” (1986) and “Tremors” (1990). It was originally intended to be a sequel to the “Carnosaur” trilogy from 1993-1996 and therefore uses stock footage from those flicks for the creature effects. The footage is effectively edited into the new storyline so you can’t tell. You could view it as “Carnosaur 4.” Being produced by Roger Corman and directed by his prolific protégé Jim Wynorski, this is a capable ‘B’ flick with the cast obviously having a good time during shooting. The black ops sequences are surprisingly well done. It’s energetic, just too routine and familiar. You could say that Corman & sidekick Wynorski were acting as a cinematic Dr. Frankenstein & Igor—lifting pieces of other cinematic bodies and grafting them together with filmic connecting tissue. Even the quality score by James Horner was entirely lifted from prior works. Lorissa McComas with her big hair plays the Sheriff’s daughter and s…

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