“What we have here is one of them testicular stand-offs.”
Michael (Paul Walker) is a high school student who is in love with Tammy (Denise Richards). Tammy’s ex-boyfriend Billy (George Pilgrim) refuses to give her up. When Billy finds out that Michael is at Tammy’s house he and his gang show up. They chase Billy down and bring him to a wild animal park. They leave him in the park where he is mauled by a lion.
While Michael is in the hospital in a coma his doctor calls in Dr. Wachenstein (Terry Kiser) for his opinion. Dr. Wachenstein is your basic mad scientist. He has created a mechanical T-Rex. His plan is to plant a human brain into it to give it consciousness and immortality. Dr. Wachenstein and his assistants Helga (Ellen Dubin), Bobby (John Franklin) and Karl (John Edmondson) declare Michael dead and then steal his body. Back at his lair Dr. Wachenstein removes Michael’s brain and implants it into the robotic dinosaur.
Michel regains consciousness earlier than the doctor expected and sees his own body on a gurney. He then finds a hand mirror and finds out he is now a T-Rex. Pissed off that he is in this position Michael the T-Rex goes looking for Billy and his gang to get even.
Michael then kidnaps Tammy and takes her to an isolated barn where he uses charades to communicate with her. Tammy and her friend Byron (Theo Forsett) decide to try to get Michael’s body back, however, when they open his coffin they find it has deteriorated. Looking for a new body for Michael they go to the morgue. While they are propping up bodies at the window for Michael to look at, Dr. Wachenstein and Helga are not far behind.
“Tammy and the T-Rex” was released in 1994 and was directed by Stewart Raffill. There are a couple versions of the film out there. It was originally done as a horror/comedy with gore and blood. The film was then cut to bring it down from an R rating to a PG-13 for the family. In 2019 the original film was re-released by Vinegar Syndrome with the nasty parts, created by special effects artist John Carl Buechler, put back in. The original movie is about 90 minutes long. The PG-13 version 82.
As for the PG-13 version, yes a lot of the gore was taken out but the sexual innuendos and the racist and homophobic references are still in. There are parts that will make you wince but the rest is over the top cheeze.
Supposedly the film itself came about because a theatre owner in South America approached Raffill telling him he was briefly in possession of an animatronic T-Rex. He told Raffill that he wanted to make a movie with it. Since they only had the creature for a short time Raffill dashed off a script in a week. With such little time to spend on the film it ended up being a little half-assed which a lot of people found sort of charming.
Whether you watch it for the gore, the jokes, the T-Rex or Denise Richards be prepared to at least do some groaning during your viewing.