The dinosaurs are back, and they're getting hungrier by the minute in this sequel to the terror tale Carnosaur. There's been a call for help from a secret underground military facility deep in the Nevada desert, so a rescue team led by Maj. McQuade (Cliff De Young) and trouble-shooter Reed (John Savage) is sent out to investigate. When they arrive, the facility's staff are all dead -- the only living person they can find is a lost, disoriented teenager named Jesse (Ryan Thomas Johnson) who is wandering through the flats. As they investigate, McQuade and Reed make two terrifying discoveries. A cache of high-grade plutonium has been stored there, but the containment is faulty, and a cloud of deadly radiation is slowly but surely being released. To make matters worse, the Army had found a number of dinosaur eggs during a dig and had stashed them at the Nevada facility...and the radiation has caused them to hatch, with a pack of hungry velociraptors patrolling the area as a result. Carnosaur 2 also stars Don Stroud, Rick Dean, and Arabella Holzbog. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Review
Another movie in the Carnosaur franchise, another Hollywood blockbuster to knock off. This time, it's Aliens that gets the Roger Corman treatment, as a ragtag group of paramilitary commandos storms an isolated research base only to find that slumbering predators have awoken and left only one young survivor. Of course, instead of a beautifully H.R. Giger-designed alien world, a screaming blond moppet, and a shadowy corporation pulling the strings, we get a drab terrestrial hideaway called Yucca Mountain, a cataleptic teenager and a standard-issue government cover-up. The original Carnosaur was nothing but a low-budget Jurassic Park also-ran, but it did have its moments -- Diane Ladd's sinister pronouncements and John Carl Buechler's cheap but effective visual effects. For this sequel, new screenwriter Michael Palmer jettisons the spooky mutant-baby/virus angle and hones in on endless scenes of dinosaurs -- midget rubber dinosaurs, no less -- skittering down industrial corridors. To compensate for the less-resonant visuals, director Louis Morneau ratchets up the queasy violence. He seems fixated on the idea of severed human limbs and takes several opportunities to run with that concept. Low-budget horror films have often matched and frequently surpassed mainstream Hollywood fare in terms of wit, style, gore, and sheer fright. The best that can be said of Carnosaur 2 is that it gives good gore. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
The Carnosaur film series are a series of four b-movies produced by Roger Corman that feature genetically engineered dinosaurs running amok in various scenarios. The series started with the first Carnosaur film, released in 1993, that was loosely based on a novel by John Brosnan. The first sequel, Carnosaur 2, followed in 1995, while the second and third films were released directly to DVD in 1996 and 2001, respectively. The first three films were released to Region 1DVD on February 6, 2001 as the "Carnosaur Collector's Set".
The first film in the series, Carnosaur was released to theaters on May 14, 1993. Loosely based on the John Brosnan's 1984 novel, Carnosaur, the film stars Diane Ladd as mad scientist Jane Tiptree who genetically engineers dinosaurs so they can take over the world. It reportedly grossed $1,753,979, despite a limited theatrical release[citation needed]
Carnosaur 2
Directed by Louis Morneau and written by Michael Palmer, Carnosaur 2 was released to theaters on February 23, 1995. Starring John Savage and Cliff De Young, the film features group of technicians called in to investigate the power shortage at a top-secret mining facility, only to discover it is actually a remote nuclear dump site where the government transported the dinosaurs from the first film. The dinosaurs got out of their holding area and ate the scientists, and now the technicians must try to survive while avoiding a radiation leak and trying to keep the dinosaurs from escaping the facility. The film was released to DVD on April 18, 2000.
Carnosaur 3: Primal Species
Released to DVD on December 17, 1996, Carnosaur 3: Primal Species was directed by Jonathan Winfrey. Starring Scott Valentine and Janet Gunn, the film has a military team attempting to recover genetically engineered dinosaurs accidentally released by international terrorists who hijacked their transport.
Raptor
Released direct-to-video on November 6, 2001, Raptor was directed by Jim Wynorski. Using recycled footage from the previous three films as well as some new footage filmed in Agua Dulce, California's Vasquez Rocks Natural Area Park, the film focuses on a small town sheriff (Eric Roberts) and an animal control officer (Melissa Brasselle) investigating a series of deaths by genetically engineered dinosaurs that escape from a nearby laboratory, while also dealing with their creator Dr. Hyde (Corbin Bernsen).
