Review by Tom
Crites of PANISCUS
REVUE
(Warning: "Spoiler"
Ahead)
Not
just a Theodore Sturgeon story, or the inspiration
for an immortal band, or even a mere comic
book, it's the whole big 1974 TV movie:
yes, it's KILLDOZER. (YES!) From the title
to the plot to the stiff union acting, KILLDOZER
is the kind of event that would be really,
really cool if you were about nine. About
25 years ago. The whole flick reminds me
of a really long and rather bad episode
of The Six Million Dollar Man, but come
on, what kid growing up in that era didn't
like that show? So pour yourself a bowl
of Count Chocula, scoot up close to the
television, and prepare for the amazing
colossal KILLDOZER!
Space: the final frontier.
These are the voyagesof the starship Asteroid.
It's overly long mission, to seek out unintelligent
life and possess common construction equipment
with the insatiable lust to kill. To boldly
blow where others have blown before . .
. Oh, sorry. Anyway, this big blue chunk
of styrofoam, looking not unlike a fat piece
of blue ice jettisioned from an airline
toilet, is hurtling through space towards
the Earth. We know it ain't a good asteroid,
because if it was the movie wouldn't be
called KILLDOZER. The meteor crashes down
on an island ("200 miles off the coast
of Africa") and waits for the good
people of Warburton Oil Resources Co. to
come find it. You see, this unnamed island
used to be a refueling station during WWII,
and now a crew of six roughnecks has been
landed there to tidy the place up with some
heavy equipment to ready it for . . . well,
for something pretty important. A young
Bobby Urich is Mack, the crew's junior member
and mascot; Kelly (Clint Walker) is the
head man, sporting sideburns and a Hitler
haircut; bargain basement Ernest Borgnine
character Dutch is played by "Special
Guest Star JAMES WAINWRIGHT"; there's
Chub the mechanic (Neville Brand); Al (James
A Watson, Jr.); and rounding out the cast
is William Shatner Acting School alumnus
Carl Betz as Dennis.
Urich doesn't seem to be taking
himself nearly as seriously as he did later
in his career (hey, it's only 1974), but
it's still probably a good thing that he
gets killed off early. "Okay sweetheart,
DESTROY!" he tells his "Big Yellow
Baby" the D-9 Bulldozer as he crumples
a quonset hut and sets off to be the alien
rock's first vicim. Although this is supposed
to be a man's man's action movie, with lots
of hardhats, big machines, and gloved hands
working away at various levers, right away
kid Mack fouls up and grinds his 'dozer
up against a cliff wall and gets stuck.
See, there's this funny lookin' rock wedged
up against the blade, and it's making a
funny humming sound. Ah, but it's too late,
and as Kelly takes over the controls he
manages to irritate the meteor, which glows
bright blue and makes Urich fall down and
do his crying mongoloid impression. The
blue light then flows wickedly across the
bulldozer's blade, intimating even worse
things yet to come.
Mack's been hurt, and hurt
bad. That blue glow gave him a hell of a
sunburn and it ain't lookin' good for our
young man. Despite some powerful male bonding
("He's my buddy!") Mack gives
up the ghost. But not before giving a gasping
warning to Kelly: "The blue light...
my god... it's there in the blade!"
Kelly doesn't quite know what the fuck all
that means, but he dutifully goes out to
check up on the machine anyway. Climbing
into the D-9 he cranks her up, and promptly
loses control as the headlamps flare with
the same unearthly humming that came from
the asteroid. Thinking fast Kelly clambers
over to the engine and severs the fuel line,
but the 'dozer fights back. Spewing steam
into his face the machine forces Kelly to
the ground, and wheeling around with bloodlust
glinting from its blade the machine chases
him into a corner just before sputtering
out of power. Yep, somethin' sure ain't
right with that there 'dozer, and Kelly
tows the beast back to the camp's makeshift
shop for further examination.
After a beach burial for Mack
the boys drink a toast to him, something
tightwad Kelly doesn't approve of one bit.
See, he used to be something of a lush himself,
and as his insubordinate subordinate Dennis
knows, "Making good with this job is
the last chance he's got." So of course
Denny offers him a slug, endearing him to
Kelly not at all. After that tense exchange
Dennis goes out for a smoke, and makes the
mistake of hucking a rock at the D-9's blade.
It's been idled but not completely hobbled,
and behind Dennis' back the machine silently
raises its mighty blade. This slams down
inches from the workman's foot, nearly causing
Dennis to crap his coverall. The next day
he confronts Kelly, having also heard Mack's
dying words, and he demands some information.
"What's this with the funny blue light?
I'm no piece of candy!" "You're
a sourball," growls Kelly, but he won't
yet come clean with his suspicions.
Chub's gone over the bulldozer,
but he can't find anything wrong with the
old girl except for a strange ringing sound
coming from the blade. Kelly wants that
baby corralled until he can get her figured,
but there's work to be done and Al hops
into the cab and revs her up before Chub
can stop him. He immediately loses control,
and the D-9 knocks over the camp's only
radio set and grinds it to pieces under
one mighty tread before carrying the puzzled
Al away into the countryside. The pedals
and levers working themselves freak Al out
a little bit and he jumps from the machine,
only to have it turn toward him with obvious
intentions. For some reason Al can't seem
to avoid several tons of slow cranky machinery,
and instead of outrunning the land grader
he opts to hide in a rusty corrugated pipe
lying nearby. Which KILLDOZER promptly mulches
before heading away on its own.
After the second burial Dennis
gets Kelly to admit he saw the D-Niner operating
by itself. That still ain't good enough
for him, so he follows its tracks out to
find the 'dozer still going strong, plowing
down tree stumps to make a passable roadway
across the island for itself. That's just
too much, so Dennis returns to convince
Kelly to try blowing up KILLDOZER with dynamite.
But before that can happen KILLDOZER comes
charging into camp and proceeds to level
the place. Cases of dynamite and barrels
of fuel are no match for the killer machine,
and after some disappointingly cheap pyrotechnic
effects the camp is in shards and the bulldozer
is still none the worse for wear. Watching
this fiendish destruction starts to unhinge
Dutch a bit, but the rest of the crew members
collect the remaining supplies and set off
to outrun the bulldozer in the camp's surviving
vehicles. As they head away from the campsite
KILLDOZER watches from the bushes, revving
its engine in sinister anticipation.
One smart chunk of metal,
KILLDOZER keeps tabs on its quarry. In one
of the film's rare and truly well-framed
shots (well, all right, the only one) KILLDOZER
ascends a hill to tamp out a signal fire
the crew has set, and the machine actually
looks quite Satanic as it rises up behind
the flames with its huge blade lifted skyward.
(The fact that this scene was filmed at
night, even though in movie-time it is mid-day,
helped considerably.) The clever tractor
then sets out to ambush the convoy of survivors,
scoring a hit on poor old Chub's pickup
truck. Which just happens to be carrying
a load of fuel that explodes as the truck
is tipped over. As Dennis fills in the barbecued
Chuck's grave (hey, wait a minute, how'd
they get a burned body out of a flaming
wreck right in front of KILLDOZER?) the
machine gloats from an overlooking hilltop,
smokestack spewing in victory. KILLDOZER
then taunts the group by pushing a load
of gravel over the cliffside at the mourners,
grazing Dennis and pissing him off some
("Pain makes me snide!") before
descending to chase the trio away from the
makeshift graveyard.
As they hide out in the Jeep
that night Kelly passes around a bottle,
refraining from taking a nip himself. Dutch
gets a pretty good grip on it though, and
spends the rest of the night killing it.
In the morning he guns the Jeep away from
his pals, shouting, "I'm going swimming!"
(?) He never makes it to shore however,
as KILLDOZER is waiting for him in a nearby
clearing. The Jeep stalls out, and Dutch
just sits there and lets the mechanical
monster grind him under in another rather
unsatisfyingly cheap scene. Making for a
handy nearby crane shovel, Dennis and Kelly
use the scoop to temprarily hold KILLDOZER
at bay. The two machines blade-wrestle for
a few minutes until KILLDOZER pins the shovel
and the guys abandon ship. Thinking hard,
the two-man team decides to rip off another
sci-fi flick and opt to "fry it like
bacon" (?) by utilizing the electrocution
strategy from The Thing From Another World.
Since the movie's time slot is nearly up
it takes Kelly and Dennis only seconds to
rig up an electrified grating and lure KILLDOZER
over on top of it for a quick and easy death.
With the fearsome land grader done in, the
two men engage in some macho male bonding
and the film is mercifully over.
Hmmm, now that I think about
it this flick didn't really merit that much
space. Ah fuck it, at least I got to say
KILLDOZER a dozen or more times. Woo-hoo!
Actually, one of the best parts of this
movie was hearing the announcer come back
from the commercials and say, "We now
return to KILL DOZER." It's all so
ludicrous that it is actually pretty amusing,
and a decent enough watch if you settle
down with a sackful of pork rinds, six or
seven beers, and a heaping helping of derision.
(No, Count Chocula just ain't gonna cut
it.) I don't know if you'll ever catch it
by any means other than accidental though,
as I don't see it making the cable rounds
too often. Now stay tuned for KILLCART,
the hectic story of an out-of-control golf
cart on a rampage . . .
