Tammy and the T-Rex (1994)

 

Director: Stewart Raffill

Screenplay: Stewart Raffill and Gary Brockette

Cast: Denise Richards as Tammy; Theo Forsett as Byron Black; George Pilgrim as Billy; Paul Walker as Michael Brock; Ellen Dubin as Helga; Terry Kiser as Dr. Gunther Wachenstein; Buck Flower as Norville; Ken Carpenter as Neville; Sean Whalen as Weasel; J. Jay Saunders as Sheriff Black; John Edmondson as Karl; John Franklin as Bobby

Obscurities, Oddities and One-Offs

 

There is something naturally, perfectly, fitting that this film, from the director of Mac and Me (1988) and Standing Ovation (2010), originates when a man approached director Stewart Raffill with the fact that he had a large scale animatronic T-Rex and wished to make a film with it¹. Knowing as well the fuller context, including Raffill having to write the script in a week and improvising whatever he felt could get a reaction, suddenly I find myself with the British born filmmaker, infamous for a E.T. rip-off by McDonalds, more sympathetic for a man who went from working as an animal trainer for films to a strange career of movies hesitantly put together and in this case, gunning for the weirdness for the sake of weirdness genre but not making something contrived.

What you get was a film lost in time which is strange. As in, already this comes from the baking pot of hastily putting together a film post-Jurassic Park (1993) where Paul Walker, long before his career in the Fast and the Furious films, is romancing a young Denise Richards only to accidentally get the wrong side of her domineering ex. Said ex dumps Walker's Michael in the middle of a big cat park at night, where he is mauled by a lion, and becomes an experiment for Dr. Gunther Wachenstein (Terry Kiser), who transplants his brain into a robot full sized T-Rex. Admittedly, this is not the first strange idea of putting a brain into something else - Boris Karloff was obsessed with transplanting brains between man and dog in House of Frankenstein (1944), and likewise Tammy... was made as a comedy. The narrative gets weirder, in real life as much as the movie's own, when the original film was meant as an R-rated movie. And when I write R-rated, that means that it was originally released cut of its content for a more family friendly form by in its premiere, and that when it was resurrected in the later 2010s by Joe Rubin, co founder of the distributor Vinegar Syndrome, with its fully uncut form, it was revelled to have a jaw dropping level of gore to go along with its bizarre tone.

Yes, Tammy... is a silly film but it does catch one off-guard with ease. It is made in the nineties, yet we open with Denise Richards in the middle of an aerobics scene with other women set to a glam metal score about walking around like a dinosaur. In complete honesty, the film with its cheese and winking tone, alongside some of its adult humour really being tactless, would have in any other context had put me off. I realise that, with a lot of cult eighties horror films especially, their cheesy tones really do not work for me. Here however you have a film where, when it comes to Paul Walker having his brain transplanted into a robot dinosaur, you have in the fully uncut version a full blown splatter moment Herschell Gordon Lewis would have been proud of, with the brain being exposed and eventually being removed. Gore is not something nowadays I take with interest as well, but there is something incredibly jarring and striking in this film, with its early nineties colours and comedic tone, where a tyrannosaurus rex foot crushes a man and it has blood split, or heads being bit off. Whilst it is not a definition of greatness in a film, there is something striking when genre and tone catch one off guard.

This is definitely the case for a film, in truth, which is goofy. In mind to its circumstances, including that the director filmed most of the film not far from his own house¹, there is a charm to the film but it cannot be denied either that it is ridiculous to consider. It is helped considerably by its cast. There is an unfortunate and bittersweet nature to Paul Walker, who tragically died too young when he developed a popular status in the Fast and the Furious franchise, a series about cars and action which moved away from its origins, of the boom in interest for street racing, into a long lasting series that gained more fans unlike other franchises after five films onwards. He is charismatic in the scenes he gets on screen, bearing in mind he is literally replaced with an animatronic dinosaur, thankfully one which does have enough as a great piece of mechanical creation that, even if they have to awkwardly animate scenes in with him afar moving, is an interesting co-star to work with as a machine. Denise Richards is the same here, a charismatic figure who thankfully went on to have a prolific career in television. Whether one film or not can be argued for why her cinema career never went as far, when there was a period in the late nineties when she would be very visible in films like Wild Things (1998), it was probably not helped by the notoriety of casting her as a nuclear physicist named Christmas Jones in a James Bond film, The World is Not Enough (1999), probably the biggest profile film from that time and an albatross around her neck for how her role was not highly looked upon.

A shame as, actually the figure that has to carry the film, she is sincere in this utterly silly film having to act against an animatronic dinosaur. With Theo Forsett, playing her friend Byron Black, having to play the leads in this absurd premise, there is a lot to have to work around in its adult humour and absurdities, such as an entire scene in a morgue, trying to find a new body for her boyfriend, which alongside a T-Rex outside giving thumbs up and downs in response outside in a truck, also has the consideration of whether to have a woman's body instead which some temptation from the dino to go in that direction. If anything, the film willingly going to the edge in terms of stretching itself is where Tammy... gains worth, a movie that knows how ridiculous it is to have an animatronic dinosaur have a scene using a payphone. It does stumble in its willingness to go for an unexpected - some of the jokes have not aged well, and Forsett's broad stereotype of a gay character will cause some to roll their eyes, but it is really the couple of jokes at his expense that are more an issue, whilst by accident character is given to him as the son to the town sheriff whose relationship is awkward as father and son.

Other times however this attitude proved a virtue to the film, where even the gore is a strange and unexpected exclamation which keeps the film, where a young woman's love for her boyfriend even overcomes him sudden brain transfer in a dinosaur, interesting. That it will have, for the scene of Michael being mauled, an actual stunt man or animal trainer play acting being attacked by an actual lion is something which stands out, as is the fact that for all the jokes, the gore and even attempted grave robbing just after a funeral, it is still sincere as a love story is credit for the film in terms of positives. Definitely the experience has softened me to Stewart Raffill as a figure, least who in his career as a filmmaker and then later an author is as eccentric as his output. Unlike a future film like Standing Ovation, a film always meant for kids which did get predictable, this in contrast was not surprisingly a film to screen when it was rediscovered and made available for midnight movie crowds in its original cut. It is, again, ridiculous, but I have to admire the film being weird too.

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1) Which can be read about, along the director's career, HERE.

Standing Ovation (2010)

 

Director: Stewart Raffill

Screenplay: Stewart Raffill

Cast: Kayla Jackson Cruz as Brittany O'Brien; Alanna Polombo as Alanna Wannabe; Pilar Martin as Blaze; Kayla Raparelli as Cameron; Najee Wilson as Maya; Alexis Biesiada as Tatiana; Joei DeCarlo as Joei Battaluci; Bobby Harper as Mr. Wannabe; Austin Powell as Mark O'Brien; P. Brendan Mulvey as Gramps; William McKenna as Eric Bateman

An Abstract List Candidate

I feel like a sick muppet.

Children's films are an area where so many films are made, excluding animation and focusing on live action, I would not be surprises some strange productions were created and product was churned out like exploitation movies were. Naturally, the reason I am here with Standing Ovation is because of the reputation of its director Stewart Raffill, who helmed The Ice Pirates (1984) but also Mac and Me (1988), an infamous film following the success of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) sponsored by McDonalds and Coca-Cola, and Tammy and the T-Rex (1994), already curious as a film where a young Denise Richard's boyfriend Paul Walker dies but has his brain transplanted into a full sized robotic tyrannosaurus rex, which came back into resurgence in the late 2010s when the original R rated version with gore was relocated.

Standing Ovation from the start did make me worry, about tween female singing groups competing in a competition where they have to create a music video, that his would send the wrong messages by accident seeing young girls in full makeup and dresses onscreen. Thankfully, baring a young belly dancer, this is just a peculiar children's music film. One, oddly, I did not get the reaction to I was hoping for, as this is a film which was a complete failure in its small theatrical release in the USA, getting a small cult of morbid adult cineastes who view this film as bonkers and became obsessed with this over the passing years online. I think because, from the get-go, I hold children's films as being more likely to be strange, cheesy and capable of scraping the bottom of a barrel, so the film alongside its pop aesthetic and music softened the construction of the production.

Boiled to its basis, the two teams are the 5 Ovations, including the lead Brittany O'Brien (Kayla Jackson Cruz), who have to face the Wiggies, a very sinister name for a legitimately mean group, daughters of a wig maker who, with his wealth, can fund them for an unfair disadvantage as well as their own tendency to cheat, such as bribing a stagehand to put pepper in the headset microphones. It is a simple tale of young teen girls aspiring to musical success, but this has some eyebrow raising content, likely to have a greater effect on some viewers not immune to this film's tone like I clearly was. Living with an older brother who is, to her horror, dating one of the Wiggies and writing their lyrics, the only adult in Brittany's is her grandfather, who also has the broadest Irish accent I have heard in a while. He also has a gambling addiction problem, spending the rent continually, which leads to a dramatic scene early on in a bookies watching horse racing on a screen, which you normally do not see in children's media.

Mostly Standing Ovation is very conventional in the narrative, even in terms of a character like Alanna Wannabe (Alanna Polombo), a younger girl who keeps invading everyone's groups and performances trying to crowbar her way to success, eventually with her father just creating her own music video with firemen as improvised back-up dancers. Far more idiosyncratic is Joei (Joei DeCarlo), the new child manager for the 5 Ovations and the daughter of a mob boss. She becomes the best character for me and part of the one legitimately strange aspect of this film, her entire subplot of regaining lost money stolen from her father which sticks out like a sore thumb in a film about singing competitions tonally. I like the character, a tough hearted asthmatic girl, including the bizarre detail she carried around with her exotic and dangerous animals with her, played by real ones (barring stand-ins) whilst still being as safe with them as possible on a production. They are even used to interrogate adults in his journey for the money, threatening one arcade owner and former criminal by trapping him in one of his own claw machines with a cobra. In close up with the actor, it is fake, but they got a real cobra for the job which is surreal to witness in a film from the 2010s, not an old seventies exploitation film for adults.

Aside from this however, Standing Ovation is sickly sweet and merely average. A lot of the reputation is that, whilst Stewart Raffill and the producers still had a bit of budget to work with, this is a low budget film in the then-new 2010s, and the infamous nature of the film comes from its production value and curious touches, like the amount of hats the young male cast wear, that feel unlikely to sell to the tweenager audience of this new era. None of this really added anything as the production values I have witnessed in other work were lower than this, alongside the knowledge so many children's films are made, which means I am not surprised there are very low budget ones in existence. Even the abrupt appearance of adult punks antagonising the child cast had no effect as I have a bias of children's films, or films for families, inexplicably putting material like this in their films which is antiquated in the modern day.

The tone is also the issue, where one film can perplex me and another like Standing Ovation does not. This is a very conventionally pace narrative, one whose style is the more eccentric even in mind of its genre allowing liberties like this but is not fully committing to this even by accident to win me over. In a more eccentric film, Mr. Wiggs (Sal Dupree), the father of the Wiggies and their funder, would be such a stranger figure in a different context, an exaggerated larger figured man who wears a variety of wigs and has a stand in his own home, with a jukebox onstage, to allow his charges to sing classic American bubblegum pop to guests. Neither will I bat an eyelid at something like Joei sneaking frogs into the Wiggies' soup in a restaurant, as that sort of prank is commonplace in this cinema to get payback.

As much of the review is influenced by being the person who does not want to cruelly dismiss the child casts' acting and singing ability, but at the same time nothing in the film was incredibly bad in my own tastes nor spectacular at all to point out.  Only an ending with finding Brittany's dad, skirting the idea money can heal old wounds, can count as a questionable production choice but it also feels rushed. If I have to call Standing Ovation anything, it does slowly reach a 21st century form of kitsch, still sincere but self reflecting of the past and the new technology of when it was made. It does play straight, with humour to a small child trying to get firemen to be sufficient dancers, marching in front of the line as a tiny girl as if she was Bob Fosse, and all the humour playful than thankfully anything remotely mean or cruel. An attempt at trying to sabotage the 5 Ovations's music video by the Wiggies turns into the kind of onscreen crude effects from the time whilst also evoking Nickelodeon I watched as a child. And there is a scene, where the 5 Ovations have to perform in a retirement home for extra cash, which includes old time jitterbugging, again something I highly doubt the target audience would be interested in. Again, this was a film which was not a success, critically panned and a curiosity for people who were not the target audience to latch onto by the end of the 2010s. It is an ironic ending for the film, to have an audience but not the one it was expecting, and the really mean critique if I have any is that this film, from the get-go, would have been a failure regardless of quality due to being a production entirely out-of-time and current culture in terms of the audience it wanted.

Abstract Spectrum: Eccentric

Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): None