Movie Review: "Killdozer" (1974)

‘How do you go about killing a machine?’

‘A machine? It’s too heavy to hang and it’s too big to put in the gas chamber.’

______ 

The 1974 television movie – produced by Universal and aired on ABC – is a campy, somewhat silly, and more entertaining than it should be horror story about a homicidal and formless space entity inhabiting a bulldozer. The alien arrived on an uninhabited island somewhere off Africa’s coast riding a meteor. Years, decades, perhaps centuries, pass before a small oil company construction crew arrives to build an airstrip on the island, but instead awaken the bloodthirsty beast. The monster jumps from the meteor to a bulldozer and, one-by-one, it murders the workers in bloody ways, usually by some horrible form of slow-motion squashing.
      The storyline is silly and there aren’t any scares, but the tight and straightforward script, co-written by the legendary science fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon, competent direction from Jerry London, and the alternately serious and tongue-in-cheek acting by Neville Brand and Carl Betz, combine to make an amusing film. There are scenes – that’s right, multiple scenes – when all a character needs to do to survive being crushed is stand up and run, but it comes across – despite Walker’s deadpan seriousness throughout – as good fun. Killdozer will never be confused with a quality horror film, but it plays pretty well as a physical comedy. Although, had it run more than its 74 minutes, it would have failed on both counts.

 

a little more about Killdozer

 

·         The movie was based on Theodore Sturgeon’s novella, Killdozer! [Astounding, Nov. 1944]. It won the 2020 retro-Hugo Award for Best Novella, 1945.

·         Marvel Comics adapted the novella into graphic form in the sixth issue of its Worlds Unknown series [April 1974].

·         Robert Urich filled a small role as the bulldozer driver that fatally discovered the meteor and its unholy guest.

 

Where you can find Killdozer…

 

Check out Amazon's page for the Blu-ray edition of Killdozer
Watch Killdozer on YouTube

 

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