Killdozer

Review: @killdozer

Vote now: (5 stars = masterpiece)

Number of votes: 2 | average rating: 3

Killdozer stars Hollywood 1950s superhero Clint Walker, a slew of 60's and 70's TV movie regulars and a young Robert Ulrich (who dies horribly in the first ten minutes or so).

It's a film about a giant killer bulldozer and a bitter battle for survival for a group of washed-up veteran construction workers. Once you get over the absurd prospect of a giant bulldozer sneaking up on people and crushing them to death, it's a great schlock thriller. But it's not just schlock. It was based on a 1944 novella by Theodore Sturgeon, a visionary sci-fi writer who went on to invent the Vulcan 'live long and prosper' salute. Sturgeon is also the real-life inspiration for Kilgore Trout, the writer that features in many Kurt Vonnegut novels.

The setting is a desolate island off the coast of Africa where a team from Warburton Construction are clearing the island for development. The construction team are a jumble of burned-out veterans and alcoholics, who in delightful 70's style, don't get along, but come together in the end to use their construction tools in a mildly innovative way to bring the killer bulldozer to justice.

It's a story about redemption for a group of men on the scrap heap. It also plays out the now familiar movie scenario of machines turning against their masters... but expressed with a healthy dash of depressing 70's realism. The pace is slow, the emotions are brittle and miserable, the outcome is unbelievably noble and heroic. It's like finding a porn mag in a rubbish bin when you're 12... gritty and delightful all at once.

This movie is like a mash-up of Terminator and a really nasty set of roadworks on the M25. It proves that good writing and decent actors can turn something that should be shit into pure gold.

Check it out