Gordon's debut film certainly gave no indication of his longevity within the fantasy genre: while it is not in the same awful league as, say, ROBOT MONSTER (1953) or Ed Wood's entire body of work, it is all the worse for being dishonest! One simply cannot play up the notion of a gigantic prehistoric creature, and then provide your audience with nothing more than a magnified lizard – to say nothing of having the gall to describe it as being akin to a Tyrannosaurus Rex! For what it is worth, the premise (scripted by Tom Gries!) of an Earth-like planet surfacing in our solar system which, when inspected, is found to still be in its infancy i.e. the age of dinosaurs and active volcanoes (though, thankfully, we do not get to see monosyllabic caveman roaming about) was not too shabby. However, like I noted before, if the budget does not extend to at least a competent level of special effects (after copious stock footage had already served for the space flight with, amusingly, an utter dearth of shots displaying the astronauts inside the vessel!), it would have been better to undertake a more manageable venture in the first place! As it stands, even if barely lasting an hour, the running-time is padded-out with a plethora of scenes revolving around the things I hate most in life: in fact, reptiles of all varieties put in an appearance here (with a particular astronaut being the brunt of most attacks, including a one-on-one with an alligator and – genuinely heart-stopping – being slithered all over by a giant dark-skinned snake)! The titular monster, then, shows his dominance over the rest by winning out in separate combats with another crocodile and an iguana. Perhaps the most outrageous element of all is the decision by the heroes to nuke the place (why would they even require a nuclear weapon during a scouting mission
for what right do humans have to destroy the life-form of another world, however hostile its reception?!) – but, of course, with no harm done to themselves – when they prove unable to overcome "King Dinosaur"!
Review of King Dinosaur
