Bad Movie Police:
Case #1-
Galaxy of the Dinosaurs
(1992)
review by Busterface

I am a sucker for bad movies. My friends and I love to get together and visit the local video store searching the 50 cent rentals for the worst possible movies we can find . After locating several movies that are sure to entertain us we then head to the nearby liquor store and stock up on vats of alcohol, and about 10-25 of us gather around the picture box with drinks in hand performing our own drunken Mystery Science Theater 3000. We’ve been doing that for years and most of our cine-victims have been the product of the early 80's straight to video boom; But the well was starting to run dry…Until now!

No matter how famous a film maker becomes, no matter how many accolades he or she has gathered, they all have to start somewhere. Those hidden gems are the best recipe for a “slobber knocker” bad movie fest. J.R. Bookwalter has many of those “gems” hidden deep away in his vault of “I can’t let anyone ever see this!” Bookwalter has made a grand decision; Instead of letting his early work rot, he has put out a series of movies called BAD MOVIE POLICE. The first of which is Bookwalter’s own skeleton, GALAXY OF THE DINOSAURS.

The DVD opens with a very funny intro of a fake movie set. The filmmakers are in the middle of a scene when the BAD MOVIE POLICE show up and arrest them for making such horrible insults to cinema. We watch as the BAD MOVIE POLICE take the perpetrators into custody and talk to the camera explaining why these film makers are being arrested. Lilith Stabs and Ariauna Albright play the parts of the BAD MOVIE POLICE. They then talk about the most wanted list of bad film makers. At the top of that list is Lance Randas (J.R. Bookwalter). They show us the 10 offenses that Lance Randas (J.R. Bookwalter) has committed in the movie GALAXY OF THE DINOSAURS, and then it’s on to the feature presentation.

GALAXY OF THE DINOSAURS is possibly the worst movie in existence (and its okay for me to say that because Bookwalter himself would probably agree), featuring a group of space travelers who are headed to Earth for a dinner date. When their coordinates are wrong they end up on a planet called Gorgon, which is inhabited by dinosaurs. The visitors are eventually stalked and killed by the dinosaurs, but you know, actually, I have no idea why I am wasting my time telling you the story. Let me get to why this is the perfect movie to make fun of while drinking.

Bookwalter got access to some 35mm stock footage from the movie THE LAND OF THE LOST. He then went out and shot his own footage on SVHS to inter-cut with the 35mm footage and the two formats merging into one movie is quite hysterical. The acting is slipshod. The effects are ludicrous. The interior shots of the spaceship look like my cubicle where I work. All of these things make this package entertaining.

My rating of 4 skulls is strictly based on the way Bookwalter has decided to breath new life into his decomposing skeletons. He is able to laugh at himself and still entertain the masses at the same time. Mucho respect to J.R. Bookwalter for restocking the video shelves for me and my drunken buddies.