BOX ART: PREHYSTERIA!

PREHYSTERIA!
Director: Albert Band and Charles Band
84 Minutes
1993

Growing up, my neighbor was dinosaur crazy. He would regularly have his generic dinosaur toys maul my G.I. Joes. He always pretended my dog was a T-Rex. He was a butthole.

 I saw Prehysteria! I immediately thought of my butthole neighbor.

Prehysteria is a movie about midget dinosaurs.

The story of Prehysteria! revolves around Retail archaeologist Rico Sarno. Sarno is on an expedition is central (?) America. He steals an ancient tribal dinosaur eggs. The story goes that if the eggs are removed from their chamber, the tribe would be cursed. Sarno is a greedy bastard. He steals the eggs and only see dollar signs. He collects treasures and sells them in his store. . . yes, he has a retail store that sells artifacts.

Windower Frank, his son Jerry and daughter Monica live out in "The Boonies." Frank makes a living. . . selling arrowheads and artifacts to Sarno's store. What an asswipe.

Jerry (Austin O'Brien - The kid from Last Action Hero and My Girl 2) is obsessed with Elvis and his sister Monica is a typical teenage tramp.

On the way into Sarno's Store, they bring their lunch cooler, and happen to swap it with Sarno's identical cooler containing the precious eggs.

The eggs hatch. Jerry and Monica name the Dinosaurs MC Hammer, Paula Abdul, and of course, Elvis. Hilarity ensues. It all sort of crumbles into Home Alone knock off with dinosaurs.

I never saw this as a kid, and honestly, I'm glad. I don't think I would have liked it even as an 8 year old. The dinosaur effects are a decent mixture of animatronic and stop motion. Other than that, this movie is pretty boring for a kids movie and just not executed at the needed pace to be entertaining.

It may be interesting to some horror fans, as the film was  co-directed by father and son team Albert and Charles Band. Albert being responsible for such horror classics as I Bury the Living and Dracula's Dog. Charles is well known for producing some great films (Reanimator and From Beyond) and a ton of not so great films (Most of his 262 Production credits on IMDB), as well as some questionable business practices. Sort of strange that these two would team up for a kids movie. But I guess they saw money in it and well. . . there ya go.

THE BOX

This isn't very good. Sure, tiny dinosaurs can probably sell some tapes. An artist's rendering of the kid from Last Action Hero? Probably sold 1 million copies.

Really boring overall. Just like the movie.