Killdozer! (1974)

 

Director: Jerry London

Screenplay: Ed MacKillop and Theodore Sturgeon

Based on the novella by Theodore Sturgeon

Cast: Clint Walker as Lloyd Kelly; Carl Betz as Dennis Holvig; Neville Brand as 'Chub' Foster; James Wainwright as Jules 'Dutch' Krasner; James A. Watson Jr. as Al Beltran; Robert Urich as 'Mack' McCarthy

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies) #259

 

It's too heavy to hang and it's too big to put in the gas chamber.

What is a killdozer? That sounds almost a joke, but this term has three meanings, four if you include the original novella by Theodore Sturgeon that connects to the others. One is, sadly, a real incident named after the short story, where after a series of conflicts with the local government in Granby, Colorado, a man named Marvin Heemeyer on June 4, 2004 went on a rampage. With a modified armour-plated Komatsu D355A bulldozer which even had guns fitted inside to fire, he managed to destroyed multiple buildings, including the town hall, though this thankfully led to no one being harmed baring Heemeyer's own suicide. Thankfully, the other two Killdozers are pleasanter. One, likely getting its name from the TV movie we will cover here, is a Wisconsin noise rock band behind a goofy yet catchy song called Knuckles the Dog (Who Helps People), of the era in the early 90s, thanks to grunge and Nirvana, when very unconventional areas of rock got even mainstream interest in belief they could be sold to the public. The third is the TV movie itself, infamous as a film, readapting the 1944 novella which was originally set in World War II and a Pacific Island, transporting it to the modern day and an island off the coast of the African continent.  

About a bulldozer possessed by an alien life-force, mowing down a group of male construction employees on said island, Killdozer the film is fascinating as, if ever one wanted to point out what American seventies cinema was like, even this ludicrous premise is taken with all the gravitas of the New American cinema wave of the era, as if the script was penned by Paul Schrader with Sam Peckinpath directing this. It is about a group of men, some broken down and one a former alcoholic, all outsiders, isolated and facing their own morality except the fact it is a giant Caterpillar D9 bulldozer which terrorises them, even having ominous shots watching them over them burying a fallen comrade on the beach, looking over on a hill nearby. Jaws (1975) was this, released a year later, with men facing a shark, but no one would bat an eyelid, even if the legendary USS Indianapolis speech by Robert Shaw in a contest with industrial vehicles would be ridiculous. John Carpenter effectively took this film's tone with some of his films, but even Christine (1983), about a sentient car, was not this po-faced. Killdozer because of this tonal schism was compelling for me.

Killdozer is a bleak film in tone, even if this is about a bulldozer being compelled to murder due to contacting with a glowing blue meteorite. This is a film about men isolated where, when one is killed due to the shock of just the bulldozer scoop hitting the meteorite, already forces the tiny group to have to mourn their death, including Dutch (James Wainwright), a member who mourns him the most and who goes through the most compelling journey. Their foreman Kelly (Clint Walker), due to a history of alcoholism, is almost robotic in his coldness, as he tries to get them to keep working until it becomes obvious what is attacking them. Even if Dutch, losing his mind and becoming more childlike as he copes in memories, suggests there has to be a logical explanation for all this, including remote control, they realise quickly this is an inhuman circumstance. The absurdity is not even a killdozer, a giant monstrosity of a machine which can crush and destroy, but how this is depicted includes the logical gap that, whilst able to gain some speed, this cast could easily outrun it on foot.

Barring the sci-fi beeping noises it makes, the grounded production style, matter-of-fact in an era prolific of television movies, fits this film's severity in tone. A brisk film in pace, with no fat at all, this could almost work barring presentation details which helped with its infamy. The film even in a way deals with its absurd premise outright in thought, as the survivors have to contemplate with how, if they live, they explain the casualties and property damage to their superiors, even if they have to accept that telling the truth will brand them insane. There is a line which, knowing of before seeing the film, is absurd when heard of, pointing out that you cannot hang a bulldozer for murder practically, but spoken from Dennis (Carl Betz), the right hand man of Kelly, it does come with a morbid humour from this character, a figure is sardonic, accepting this dumb situation. It does not defend the film's truly haphazard tone, entirely because of what it is about, but it does ask of why a premise like this is ridiculous, helping the film get a cult reputation. Something about cursed objects in horror, certain examples, are more accepted than others but it depends on what they are. These objects like a bulldozer are banal objects, though a Caterpillar D9 is an intimidating machine even used in military service. This is not the same as a film called The Refrigerator (1991), which played to its absurd premise, where the concept of what is possessed sounds inherently ridiculous, though a giant American fridge if hit with would still kill someone. Here, presentation, with its headlights made eyes and its habit of driving around in circles like a lunatic, is where the strangeness lies.

More so as, adding to the serious tone, the cast whilst mostly of television fame are the sort of character actors of this era in American cinema which really emphasises the era this was made in. Clint Walker was the long western television series Cheyenne (1955-1962), whilst the other figure ultimately a protagonist is Carl Betz as Dennis, a prolific television actor who did dabble in cinema too. One actor who definitely cements how even the casting is of its time, and the one actor I recognised and was happy to see, is Neville Brand as 'Chub' Foster, who I know as an immediately recognisable face, of granite, from Tobe Hooper's Eaten Alive (1977), playing the owner of a hotel who keeps a man-eating crocodile in the back waters.

It does emphasis how tone and circumstance does drastically effect a story as, if made in the 2000s, a made-for-television work like this would be possible taken as serious, but not as severe in tone, likely have more than just male actors in the case, or if with the SyFy channel, possible made like their many monster movies of the era with obvious CGI and a possible ironic edge. Killdozer is, as made-for-TV horror films go, one that is iconic though for me always heard as in a notorious way. It is undeniably silly, but I found myself compelled by it taking itself so serious, and being well made, that it comes off even more compelling as a pop cultural artefact for having virtues too.