{"id":44470,"date":"2024-07-08T11:48:32","date_gmt":"2024-07-08T15:48:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=44470"},"modified":"2024-07-08T11:48:32","modified_gmt":"2024-07-08T15:48:32","slug":"bad-movie-monday-killdozer-1974","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2024\/07\/08\/bad-movie-monday-killdozer-1974\/","title":{"rendered":"BAD MOVIE MONDAY: KILLDOZER! (1974)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Once upon a time, when Hollywood still had a smattering of original ideas bouncing around its empty little head, there was something called THE ABC MOVIE OF THE WEEK. If you don\u2019t know what that is, probably because you\u2019re under the age of sixty, it was this loose anthology series comprised of Made-for-TV movies that ran from 1969 to 1975 on the ABC network. It wasn\u2019t always thrillers and horror and sci-fi flicks, but it was often <\/i>thrillers and horror and sci-fi flicks. Often enough where you could say that these movies had a loose spiritual connection to The Twilight Zone or Night Gallery. Probably the most famous film that came out of it was Duel, starring Dennis Weaver and directed by Steven Spielberg. That one, which I\u2019m sure you\u2019ve heard of, is an excellent tightly woven thriller and a masterclass in how to build tension. It\u2019s in my top five favourite Spielberg films actually. So of course I won\u2019t be reviewing that one. Instead, I\u2019ll be reviewing KILLDOZER!<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Now, I’d like to share some crazy bit of trivia about me. I can\u2019t be absolutely 100% sure of what I\u2019m about to say, but I think<\/i> that this just may be the very first movie I ever saw in my entire life. Because watching it again today unlocked a lot of old fragmented memories. I recognize a lot of the film\u2019s scenes, especially the spookier ones with the bulldozer. I also remember that my mother was carrying me in her arms the last time I was watching the film. So I must have been tiny. KILLDOZER! aired on February 2nd,<\/sup> 1974, and I\u2019m fairly certain that I didn\u2019t watch it afterwards. That means that the last time I saw it I wasn\u2019t even one year old yet. Isn’t that wild?<\/p>\n

SYNOPSIS<\/b><\/p>\n

While a team of construction workers are building an airstrip for an oil company on a small island off the coast of Africa, one of their bulldozers becomes possessed by an ancient alien entity living inside a meteorite that crashed there thousands of years ago. The bulldozer, nay Kill<\/i>dozer, then goes on a murderous rampage.<\/p>\n

THINGS I THOUGHT DURING THE MOVIE<\/b><\/p>\n

Movies just don\u2019t look like this anymore. Those rich deep Earth tones and vivid colours, with just a hint of grain and blur, scream THE SEVENTIES. I don\u2019t care how \u201cgood\u201d it looks to anyone else, Super High Definition will always feel like Tik Tok videos to me. This, on the other hand, feels like I\u2019m watching a real movie.<\/p>\n

I know this is going to sound crazy, but I sort of miss movies where you can barely see anything in scenes shot at night. Weren\u2019t horror movies scarier that way? Today, night scenes are so clear that the audience and the characters might as well have infrared vision.<\/p>\n

The film is convinced that weird space sounds on the soundtrack are scary, and I kind of agree with it to be honest. No one puts odd atonal bleep-bloops in their movies anymore.<\/p>\n

The characters in the movie aren\u2019t always smart and they don\u2019t always make the best decisions, but they\u2019re always adults about it. It\u2019s kind refreshing to watch middle aged men act like middle aged men instead of angst-ridden forty year old teenagers.<\/p>\n

A Caterpillar D9, like the Killdozer in the movie, weighs almost fifty tons and has a maximum forward speed of 7.3 mph. GUYS, I THINK I SEE A WAY OUT OF THIS! Why don\u2019t you try running in the opposite<\/i> direction that the bulldozer is going?<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a scene in this movie where, if it was edited a tiny bit differently, it would be something straight out of Austin Powers. One of the construction workers is trying to run off in a Jeep, but the Killdozer is coming verrrry slowly from about three thousand feet away. You can guess the rest, and it is as hilarious as you expect it to be.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>WAS IT <\/b>REALL<\/b>Y A BAD MOVIE?<\/b><\/p>\n

No, it wasn\u2019t bad, but it is kind of boring. It\u2019s fun for a one time watch because it\u2019s like taking a dip straight back into the warm sexy waters of what was swinging seventies era television, but after a few re-watches you notice that it\u2019s a bit slow and clunky. I think that this was trying to emulate Duel, with a monstrous piece of machinery battling against men. The problem is that it has none of the tension, buildup, payoffs, or scares of Duel. Not to mention, with Duel you don\u2019t know what to expect. With this movie it\u2019s obvious exactly what\u2019s going to happen. I mean, the story\u2019s right there in the title<\/i>. That said. I think this movie has a lot of charm and a lot of value in watching once, but once is enough. Consider this a mild recommendation. It\u2019s an archaic form of entertainment. It\u2019s a time capsule. It\u2019s a dusty museum piece. Seek it out, have some fun experiencing it, then forget about the damn thing for the next fifty years like I did.<\/p>\n

KILLDOZER! stars Clint Walker as Lloyd Kelly, Carl Betz as Dennis Holvig, Neville Brand as ‘Chub’ Foster, James Wainwright as Jules ‘Dutch’ Krasner, James A. Watson Jr. as Al Beltran, and Robert Urich as ‘Mack’ McCarthy. It was written by Herbert F. Solow, Theodore Sturgeon and Ed MacKillop based on the novella by Theodore Sturgeon, and it was directed by Jerry London.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Once upon a time, when Hollywood still had a smattering of original ideas bouncing around its empty little head, there was something called THE ABC MOVIE OF THE WEEK. If you don\u2019t know what that is, probably because you\u2019re under the age of sixty, it was this loose anthology series comprised of Made-for-TV movies that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3070],"tags":[3426,3425,3427,3428],"class_list":["post-44470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-badmoviemonday","tag-abc-movie-of-the-week","tag-clint-walker","tag-robert-urich","tag-theodore-sturgeon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44470"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44470\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44483,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44470\/revisions\/44483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}