Just the Ticket #147: Prehysteria! 3

Article by Sean Wilkinson,

a.k.a. the Ticketmaster.

I almost didn't do this review, Ticketholders! Not because I was feeling lazy, low on energy, stressed out, and in such a mood to procrastinate that not even my favorite means of escapism was safe...except that was totally part of the reason. The rest of it came down to watching the first five minutes of Prehysteria! 3 and dreading the prospect of watching the rest of it and having to commit it to memory long enough to have feelings about it so I could write them down.

But here we are, so please remember to Become A Ticketholder if you haven't already, post your favorite dinosaur (or anything else, really) in the comments section at the bottom of this post, help out my ad revenue as you read to help pay for the mortgage on my outdated, broken-down miniature golf course, and follow me to the nearest museum exhibit on Tumblr, Reddit, Facebook, and LinkedIn to like what you see and receive the latest miniature dinosaur eggs of news on my content.

Why did Full Moon and Moonbeam do three Prehysteria! movies? In case they got a hole in one! Having fallen out of the back of a blind man's pickup truck in 1995, Prehysteria! 3 (I'm not making the exclamation point placement joke again, don't worry) is definitely the entry with a hole in it. The Band Brothers (Charles, Albert, and Richard) stepped back involvement to a production- and music-only level, leaving directing duties to TV movie and Puppetmaster III director David DeCoteau, based on a script by Michael Davis, Brent Friedman, and Neil Ruttenberg, with Pete Von Sholly getting character and concept credit once again.

Owen Bush's Mr. Cranston and voice actor Frank Welker, who does the dinosaur vocalizations, are the only returning players.

Which is unfortunate because this could have been a solid children's movie without the disappointment of diminishing displays of diminutive dinosaur derring-do, meaning the purported focus of the film was not necessary!

Because paying returning actors, using impressive stop-motion and animatronic effects, and making a profit on the cheap costs money, we don't even get a mention of the Taylor family by name this time, and the adorable but existentially terrifying comedy stylings of Elvis, Paula, Jagger, Hammer, and Madonna (who, I forgot to mention last time, have been wearing military-meets-hip-hop name tags since the second movie because 90s fashion, laziness, and plot convenience) are almost abandoned as a cost-cutting measure. Here, they are merely limited-motion, stationary robotic plot devices for the human characters to remind us of in case our prehistoric walnut-brains forget what sequel we're watching. What little transitory movement the dinos do occurs either between cuts (because making a dinosaur puppet walk and asking a white senior citizen with no combat experience to be a military action hero are basically the same thing) or by way of someone bouncing them up and down behind a scenery obstruction like a child is playing with one of those hard rubber dinosaur toys you can get at the grocery store for five dollars. Elvis bites someone on the ass like he does in every Prehysteria! (I know there are only three and this is the third one, but I said what I said), this time with the victim freaking out and accidentally pouring a bottle of muscle relaxer on his genitals because this is a Full Moon joint. But in general, the lack of tiny dinosaur action at the forefront is incredibly disappointing.

As for the human stuff, we have the basic, family in trouble with an evil relative wanting their land because rich isn't rich enough plot. These are the McGregors, owners of a run-down miniature golf course. The father, Thomas McGregor (Modern Family's Fred Willard) has golf PTSD after he lost a championship to his brother Hal (Bruce Weitz, who voiced Lock-Up in Batman: TAS and Bruno Manheim in Superman: TAS). The daughter, Ella (Zombie Strippers' Whitney Anderson), is so obsessed with her Scottish heritage that she does cultural stereotype stuff like quote Scotty from Star Trek (expect the script to be full of references so dated and blatant that they had to load the movie with stock wacky sound effects because almost none of the jokes are funny), annoy her family with bagpipe music, make everyone eat haggis, play golf, wear a kilt and tam o' shanter everywhere she goes, and talk in an inconsistent, buzzword-filled Scottish accent that sounds more Irish than anything and she stops using it halfway through the movie for no reason, and she's the main character, so I hate her. Her brother, Heath, is a walking surfer-mullet with no moral compass who works at Uncle Hal's golf course, calls British people twinks, really wants a guitar, and is played by Children Of the Corn V's Dave Buzzotta. He redeems himself in the finale when he dresses like Godzilla and beats up one of Hal's caddy goons, but Heath is just a basic background dick who refused to do customer service before we millennials made it cool. And finally, there's stand-up comedienne Pam Matteson as Michelle McGregor. She's the mom, she talks like a hippie, and she makes metal sculptures because in Full Moon Land, where stereotypes are okay, artists are either French or hippies (of which she is both, and all three), and that's her "character." The usual series of sabotaging goons and pest control agents are trotted out to the usual "this is where the bearable-to-awful plot becomes a slow, snail-fucking torture show" degree of success, with the only real surprise here being a younger Matt Letscher (Reverse Flash in the CW's Arrowverse continuity) as Hal's sadistic, ass-kissing sidekick, Needlemeyer. His character name is perfect, and of anyone else in the film, Letscher seems to be having the most fun with his role. In the end, it comes down to a mini-golf contest between Ella and Hal for the fate of the newly rebranded Dino-Putt course (literally the only real reason our five dinosaur pals are in the movie is to give the McGregor family a rebranding idea for the mini-golf course), Thomas finding out his brother cheated by way of an obvious and tasteless reference to the JFK assassination "Grassy Knoll Conspiracy" and the Zapruder tapes (again, like children who laugh at wacky sounds and bad slapstick would know what any of that is), Mr. Cranston returning to pick up the dinosaurs and saying he's lost them many times (because it's always great when a character in the awful thing you're currently watching reminds you that you could have been watching a better movie in an alternate universe) and a stereotypical Japanese businessman (the late John Fujioka) offering the McGregors an unspecified butt-load of money to turn Dino-Putt into a multi-national family resort (with launch locations in China and Russia???) where people can eat nothing but hamburgers all day long.

Freeze frame; this story is happy end?

No, this story is pain as shit, and I'm ready to watch a good movie that has nothing to do with hamburgers, dinosaurs, golf, or any combination thereof.

F

I will admit, though; I do feel like I need more Matt Letscher performances in my brain. But thank Christ Who Art the 'C' in B.C. that the Jurassic part of Jurassic Joy Ride June is finally over. Next week, let's join Timeline star Paul Walker for a fun Joy Ride to close out the month. I'm tired, so I'll do the link insertions for this later today.

Ticketmaster's Note (6/21/2024, 4:30pm PST): Mission accomplished! Congraturation! This Note is happy end!

Please remember to Become A Ticketholder if you haven't already, post your favorite dinosaur (or anything else, really) in the comments section at the bottom of this post, help out my ad revenue as you read to help pay for the mortgage on my outdated, broken-down miniature golf course, and follow me to the nearest museum exhibit on Tumblr, Reddit, Facebook, and LinkedIn to like what you see and receive the latest miniature dinosaur eggs of news on my content.

Ticketmaster,

Roaring Out.