Prehysteria! 2 (1994) poster

Prehysteria! 2 (1994)

Rating:

USA. 1994.

Crew

Director/Producer – Albert Band, Screenplay – Michael Davis & Brent Friedman, Based on an Idea by Peter Von Sholly, Photography – James Lawrence Spencer, Music Adaptation – Michael Wetherwax, Original Music – Richard Band, Visual Effects – David Allen Productions, Digital Effects – Mr Film (Supervisor – Paul Gentry), Stop Motion Animation – Yan Guo, Puppeteers – Allen Barton & Mark Rappaport, Production Design – Milo. Production Company – Moonbeam Entertainment.

Cast

Kevin R. Connors (Brendan Wellington), Bettye Ackerman (Miss Winters), Jennifer Harte (Naomi), Dean Scofield (Colin Wellington), Greg Lewis (Ivan), Michael Hagiwara (Mr Hiro), Alan Palo (Killum), Larry Hankin (Ketchum), Owen Bush (Mr Cranston)


Plot

The baby dinosaurs are accidentally packed into a crate of raisins intended for shipping. They are found by obnoxious rich kid Brendan Wellington, who is hiding from bullies, and another girl Naomi. The two argue over who found the dinosaurs, which Brendan solves by buying the crate of raisins. Back home Brendan hides the dinosaurs from the autocratic housekeeper Miss Winters. While playing, he and Naomi find his father’s childhood train set and decide to rebuild it for his birthday. They must use the dinosaurs to fool the servants into getting the pieces they need to complete the model.


Prehysteria! (1993) was an insipid effort from father and son team Albert and Charles Band, the producers of a great many low-budget films throughout the 1980s and 90s at studios like Empire and Full Moon. Prehysteria! was a children’s film that was quickly slung together to exploit the huge success of Jurassic Park (1993).

The Bands plumb truly execrable depths with Prehysteria! 2. It falls into a certain line of thinking that regards a children’s film as an excuse for puerility and bad comedy. The film is dominated by ludicrously broad comic acting – a Japanese cook who does bad karaoke; water hijinks with the bumbling gardener; two idiotic exterminators with a penchant for military maneuvers; and a crabbily autocratic housekeeper.

All the faults of the first film fail to be compensated for but are instead taken to an extreme. The dinosaurs are even stiffer than the first time around – this time they are hardly even animated and in some scenes are obviously just being rocked back and forth on wires. Worse they are made to behave in ways that are not believable – one’s tail acts as an instant lockpick; and since the previous film they have somehow gained intelligence and can do such exploits as paint the railway set with brushes attached to their tails and knock over marbles to trip the villains up on cue.

Even worse, like the first film, they have no real purpose and are almost completely extraneous to the action – they could have been written out of the story without any difference. How more puerile can a clone of Jurassic Park be reduced to than a climax that does not actually involve the dinosaurs doing anything but where the triumph is instead dependent on the young hero’s business tycoon father throwing away his cellphone and learning to play with model trains again?

There was a subsequent marginally better sequel Prehysteria! 3 (1995).

(Winner for Worst Film in this site’s Worst Films of 1994 list).


Trailer here


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