After one of the most unbelievably shitty faux Alice Cooper tunes ever recorded by… someone, we get down to brass fuckin’ tacks as Tammy (Denise Richards), or ‘Tanny’ as the beginning credits call her, is reticent to start a new relationship with jock Michael (the late Paul Walker) after coming of an abusive ‘sitch with her violence prone ex… an ex which damn near kills Mikey in a brawl.
Thankfully for our strapping young lad, and dinophiles everywhere, local evil genius Dr. Wachenstein (Terry Kiser; Bernie himself in a role that could graciously be called slightly over the top) has a robot Tyrannosaurus lying around and he slaps Michael’s brain inside of that revoltin’ reptile.
T.Rex Mike then goes on a crusade to both woo Tammy and fight evil. Based on a true story.
Tammy and the T. Rex is a self-aware slice of cinematic insanity that absolutely must be seen to be believed. You have performances so broad they play for the cheap seats somewhere around Neptune… well except for Richards who plays the whole thing straight (a miracle of the modern day) and manages to be sweet and sincere… as well as the dichotomy of a teen romance picture full of outrageous gore, and scenes of a dinosaur dialing a fuckin’ phone. Discovering that this came from director Stewart Raffill (who brought us such glorious nonsense as Mac and Me and ’80s HBO favorite The Ice Pirates) goes a tad in explaining how this happened at least…
If you need more coaxing to check this one out, I can assure you there are absolute gobs of amazingly realized, practically realized gore effects… plus there’s actually a full-scale animatronic T. Rex puppet on display (a real plus for a monster lover like your’s cruelly), and some actually well done, if over-the-top comedic bits… plus Kiser’s performance has to be experienced like a fine wine.
Now I know this film was originally released as a bloodless, sanitized, family film back in those far flung days of the early ’90s (1994 to be exact), which I guess makes sense given the nature of the plot, but so much of the fun comes from the juxtaposition of disparate genres that makes this thing work way better than you’d think.
Tammy and the T. Rex is sublime material for lovers of psychotronic cinema, and will be absolutely lapped-up by midnight movie aficionados like some sort of movie-based milk… you know what, just fuckin’ watch the damn film.
Newly restored by Vinegar Syndrome and presented by AGFA, Tammy and the T. Rex recently played the 9th edition of Chattanooga Film Festival‘s Frightening Ass Film Fest.