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 |
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