The Dinosaur Project

Director - Sid Bennett (Infested!)
Starring - Richard Dillane (Doctor Who, Dead in Tombstone), Peter Brooke (Wrong Turn 5: Bloodlines), Matt Kane (The Cut)
Release Date - 2012
Genre - Horror/Sci-Fi
Tagline(s) - "Discover a world lost for millions of years... Get ready to fear extinction" and "The discovery of a lifetime will become a fight for survival."
Format - Streaming (Netflix)

Rating (out of 5):

      My childhood hit Jurassic Park and both it's sequels head on and shaped what movies I would watch for years. This film lead to a huge obsession during my teenage years with dinosaurs and eventually lead to my interest in cryptozoology. Though cryptozoology is still a hobby of mine I still hold an interest for any films and television shows that have dinosaurs in them and that can be seen in my recent review for Age of Dinosaurs (read the review here).  When I discovered that film I also discovered a found footage flick called The Dinosaur Project.  After being severely disappointed with AoD i decided not to watch this one for some time, however, I had some time to kill and found this one on Netflix.  The rest is history. 

     The film follows a team of explorers and a camera crew from Great Britain as they travel into the heart of the Congo to search for the cryptozoological creature Mokele-Mbembe.  There has been a recent surge in sightings and the group hopes to find and record the legendary beast.  When they reach the Congo they meet up with a tour guide but things go south.  While flying to their destination they encounter a flying prehistoric creature that crashes the helicopter.  They crash near an abandoned village where they encounter even more prehistoric beasts before discovering an entrance to a world long since forgotten by mankind.  The team becomes separated and some do not survive the dinosaur encounters and to make matters worse a member wants to steal all the glory and plots to sabotage their return home.  Who can survive the dinosaurs and the shitty people?
     Sometimes I like to grab a movie that is out of the ordinary.  Lately, I have been watching a metric shit ton of slashers and I wanted to escape from my normal viewing and grab something different.  With my love of dinosaurs and cryptids I grabbed this found footage flick and it did not disappoint.  I normally have a hard time staying focused when I watch a found footage flick.  The shaky camera and first-person narrative gives me a headache and makes me not want to finish the flick. The perfect example of this is The Blair Witch Project and George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead.  No one wants to pay their hard earned money to watch a movie that is so shaky that the viewer gets a headache.  I understand that it adds a new level of realism to the horror experience but it is just not a fun movie watching experience.  However, this movie added the found footage experience to very good camerawork while adding effects in post-production.  The film did resemble most found footage without the horrible camerawork.  The acting in this one is decent but some scenes do not seem convincing.  The character's lives are in danger but they don't really seem to care for the most part.  A little more effort by the cast would have went a long way.  The story is nothing new, in fact, everyone has seen this movie in one way or another.  Those familiar with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's novel The Lost World or any of the numerous films inspired by it has seen everything this film has to offer.  Finally, this does have a lot of special effects for the viewer to see but they are not that good.  The film relies heavily on CGI to bring the beasts to life.  Sadly, the CGI is not that good and it takes away from the overall film.  A little better acting and better CGI work would have made this film an instant knock out.  Overall, this film gives the viewer an entertaining take on a story they have already seen and probably love.  Though it is nothing knew it still gives the viewer a great movie experience.  I highly recommend this one.