PREHYSTERIA is the worst kind of kids' film. It's thoroughly innocuous and predictable, played throughout at sitcom level. The main attractions--miniature dinosaurs--aren't so hot either.
Somewhere in South America, greedy American antique dealer Rico Sarno (Stephen Lee) discovers an ancient temple where the eggs of so-called "pygmy dinosaurs" lie. Despite opposition from his native guide, Sarno steals the eggs and takes them back to his shop in a small California town, where he
keeps them in a cooler. Shortly after, recently widowed farmer Frank Taylor (Brett Cullen) stops in with his young son Jerry (Austin O'Brien), teenage daughter Monica (Samantha Mills) and their dog, which mistakenly picks up the cooler, thinking it is the Taylors' own. When the container is placed
in the basement, the eggs inside soon hatch, disgorging a quintet of miniature prehistoric creatures.
The little beasts are discovered by Jerry and Monica, who quickly get over their shock and name them after pop musicians: the tiny Tyrannosaurus is called Elvis, the pterodactyl is named Madonna, etc. Keeping the rambunctious critters a secret is difficult, and soon Frank is making their
acquaintance as well. He's also starting up a tentative romantic relationship with Vicki (Colleen Morris), Sarno's put-upon assistant. For his part, Sarno is enraged to find the eggs missing, and sends two inept thugs, Louis (Tony Longo) and Richie (Stuart Fratkin), to retrieve the mini-dinosaurs.
The Taylors and Vicki, however, manage to defeat the bumbling bad guys and humiliate Sarno. Now one big, happy family, the Taylors, Vicki and the little dinosaurs drive off together. But the South American tribesman who guided Sarno has just arrived in town, searching for the animals himself.
Little dinosaurs are a natural for Full Moon productions, the company behind PREHYSTERIA. Most of its adult-oriented genre films, from the PUPPETMASTER series to DOLLMAN, have concerned small creatures and people, and PREHYSTERIA hit the video racks as JURASSIC PARK fever was at its peak. But it
resembles nothing so much as one of the childish live-action Disney productions of the '60s and mid-'70s, the type wickedly sent up in passing by Joe Dante's MATINEE. The characters are stereotypes, from the befuddled but generally nice dad, to the kids who are smarter than all adults and the
moron bad guys who set up the film's negligible tension (though Longo's doofus act does provide the film's only chuckles). The humor is sophomoric and strained, and there's no sense of wonder surrounding the dinosaurs, which are ostensibly the movie's selling point. Though articulated fairly well,
the mini-monsters never give the impression that they are anything other than manipulated rubber models. (Comic violence, mild profanity.) leave a comment