Dinosaur Prison


Beth: "We've got to let them out."
Sarah: "Are you insane? These aren't mice!"


release year: 2023
genre: dinosaur action/horror
viewing setting: home streaming 6/29/26

synopsis: Three stupid environmentalists, looking for animals to free, break into the wrong place.

impressions:  This one starts off interestingly enough, as three black-clad women sneak around an old prison at night. Are they burglars? Ninjas? Escapees? Turns out they're environmentalists dressed like ninjas, except with far less intelligence. They think they're going to find some poor caged animals and free them, but they're wrong: they've actually stumbled into a special prison with special inmates: dinosaurs created by shady government research, who are just waiting for a chance to get out and kill everyone they find. Given the fact that the environmentalist-ninjas are incredibly stupid - using flashlights, talking loudly, even arguing once inside - things probably aren't going to end well for them. Some other aspects of note: everyone's acting like it's perfectly normal that dinosaurs exist...consistently bad acting and bad lines..."reverse DNA engineering" (of course)...most of this movie feels like a bad haunted house tour...some of the dinosaurs have superpowers!...the environmentalist-ninja women smile like idiots when they should be worrying...the very concept of dinosaurs kept in human jail cells is idiotic...the already-brief 72-minute running time is padded by things like long boring conversations and slow-motion action scenes. To be fair, it WAS entertaining...but just bad at times. As a final note (warning?) this movie was made by ITN Films who have made some movies we've enjoyed.

confirmed body count: 11 humans + several dinosaurs

acting:  As I sometimes do when a movie is unusually bad, I'm going to present the cast of characters and straight-out tell you what's up. Be aware that some of these character names were made up by me, either because the movie character was never named or because I just felt like it:
  • Beth - leader of the environmentalist-ninjas and perhaps the dumbest one ever sent off on a mission; has zero clue that her and her team are in way over their heads
  • Sarah - blonde environmentalist-ninja #1, tries her best to talk sense into her stupid leader
  • Liana - blonde environmentalist-ninja #2, decides to quit the mission early on and leaves, but unfortunately comes across a large carnivorous dinosaur, at which point her story ends for good
  • the Penguin - some sort of scientist who wears a velour suit and bowtie and top hat, carries a cane, and speaks eloquently with a British accent; seems to have issues with the dinosaurs' treatment, and guides the two surviving environmentalist-ninja women through the prison explaining what's going on
  • Albert - a scientist allied with the Penguin; he really loves those unhatched dinosaur eggs
  • Hill - the burly head guard, seems to hate everyone, can't maintain control of his relatively-small staff of guards
  • Beardo - bearded guard
  • the Kid - young guard whose job seems to be watching the cameras
  • Ben - guard who gets killed on the top floor
  • Baldy - guard who gets killed looking for Ben, may be the same character as Beardo but it was impossible to tell in the dark
  • anonymous guard #1 - gets killed shortly after Baldy
  • anonymous guard #2 - ditto
  • the Whiner - random scientist-type apparently hiding in the back of the T-Rex cage; his sole purpose seems to be to let Hill know that the T-Rex escaped
  • mercenary #1 - tough-looking and -talking female with machine gun; dies rather quickly as she's dragged into a cell by a raptor
  • the Highlander - mercenary #2, who runs out of ammo and then brandishes a giant sword that lights itself on fire as he proceeds to duel the cloaked dinosaur and win, shortly before falling victim to a surprise attack by the T-Rex
  • other random staff member #1 - gets burned to death by Bo's flame-breath during the big rampage
  • other random staff member #2 - gets eaten by larger dinosaur during the big rampage
  • Tina - some sort of mother dinosaur, but she fits inside a cell so she clearly isn't the T-Rex or one of the other larger ones
  • the baby - tiny and newly-hatched, it's briefly a hostage right before the big rampage
  • Bo - probably the single most bad-ass of the dinosaurs, he's a normal-sized raptor who breathes fire, which he uses to (among other things) free the big T-Rex from its cage and fry the one random staff member...before hitching a ride atop the T-Rex, after which they run away from the prison to menace an unsuspecting world
  • Cloaker - this dinosaur can turn invisible; it puts up a good fight before being beheaded by the Highlander
  • the T-Rex - one of the big two dinosaurs; it commits some mayhem before fleeing the prison at the end of the movie
  • Big Guy - the other of the two big dinosaurs, with a narrow snout; it gets a few victims and then is never seen again
  • sound-firing dinosaur - another smaller one that's first seen in a cell, it has some sort of sonic powers but is never seen again

    • (note: the above was the best I could do given the chaos of this movie; since you've made it this far in my review, I trust that you understand)

    final word: (me, to my wife) "The world of monster films is a giant hunk of cheese, and we have to eat it one bad movie at a time."

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