|
Our
film begins with an unfortunate looking
meteor, tumbling toward a planet suspended
on a string that looks suspiciously
familiar. After making a crash landing,
the space rock begins radiating an
unhealthy looking bluish glow and emitting
a menacing drone.
And
there it sat, undisturbed -- until now.
We
switch to the present (sometime
in the mid-70s, judging by the wardrobe.)
The mega-conglomerate Warco has sent six
construction workers to a tiny remote
island to begin work on a base camp for an
oil refinery. The island has been deserted
since it was used as a landing strip
during World War II. Lloyd
Kelly (Clint Walker), the
no-nonsense company man, is in charge, and
the work hasn’t been progressing fast
enough for him, mostly due to the
goldbricking of Dutch and Mac (James
Wainwright and a very young Robert Urich).
Rousting them out of an old barracks,
Lloyd puts them back to work.
Mac
runs the big D-9 bulldozer, and while
leveling the few remaining buildings, he
runs the blade right into our mysterious
meteorite; it isn't all that big, but the
dozer can’t budge it. Lloyd
wants to know what the hold up is and Mac
points out the strange rock. Neither man
can identify it because it doesn’t match
"the geological landscape." But
it doesn't really matter what it is, the
obstacle has to be removed. Lloyd jumps in
the D-9, backs up, and takes a run at it.
As if sensing the danger, the meteor
starts to glow and whine again, and when
Lloyd hits it, there is a massive
discharge of energy that burns Mac and
knocks him off his feet. We also notice the
strange blue glow transfers from the rock
to the D-9.
Mac
is hurt, bad, but medical help can’t
arrive for at least three days. He
eventually succumbs to the burns and dies.
After they bury him, Lloyd writes it off
as a freak accident and sends the
grumbling men back to work. He
takes over the D-9, but it begins to act
up on him; it appears to have a mind of
its own, and tries to buck him off. Lloyd
manages to cut the machine's hydraulic
lines before it can throw him. He tows it
back to camp and tells the mechanic to
give the D-9 a complete going over.
But
Chub (Neville
Brand) can’t find anything wrong
with it -- except for a strange humming
vibration coming from the dozer’s blade.
He fixes the hydraulics, but Lloyd has an
uneasy feeling and declares the D-9 off-limits.
He has the right idea to be uneasy as the
viewer slowly realizes that the D-9 has
become sentient. While it observes Lloyd
using the radio, Al
(James Watson), another
crewman, needs the D-9 to complete his
job. Ignoring Chub’s warnings, he cranks
the machine up and all seems well, at
first, but then the dozer starts behaving
rather anti-socially. The
machine is a runaway, with poor Al
impudently stuck in the driver’s seat.
It goes berserk, destroying the camp, and
takes out the radio. Al manages to bail
off and finds refuge in some unburied
culvert pipe, but the dozer circles back
and runs him over -- several times. Lloyd
and Dennis (Carl Betz)
witness the murderous machine’s rampage,
and watch horrified as it rumbles off into
the jungle.
The
four remaining workers manage to salvage
two jeeps, a truck, and some provisions.
The plan is to get to the high ground,
where the dozer can’t get at them, and
wait for the supply ship that's due in two
days. The convoy heads out just in time as
the D-9 roars out of the trees and
demolishes what’s left of the camp. But
on their way up, the D-9 -- somehow, gets
ahead of them. Topping that feat, it also
manages to sneak up and pounce on the
truck. Rolling it over with it's blade,
with Chub trapped inside, the vehicle
explodes before he can get out.
The
others reach the high ground and wait.
Dutch
begins to "come off his spool"
because he can’t quite accept the fact
that a bulldozer has come to life and is
bent on killing them. (Seven
beers in and I can't either -- but I’m
getting there.) He gets drunk and
decides to go for a swim. Stealing a jeep,
and heads for the beach and
hits the sand, but runs right into the
D-9. After a brief Mexican stand off, the
jeep stalls out. Dutch averts his eyes
before the dozer flattens him.
Lloyd
and Dennis arrive in time to see Dutch get
squished, and then the D-9 sets it’s
headlights on them. They manage to get to
Dennis’ excavator rig and battle the D-9
to standstill. But the excavator can’t
take the abuse for much longer, so Lloyd
quickly comes up with a plan. While the
D-9 is hung up on the excavator's shovel,
they patch together and electric flytrap
to electrocute the rogue machine. (Dewey
Martin and Ken Tobey would be so proud.)
Lloyd
offers himself up as bait, luring the D-9
into the trap. Dennis throws the switch
and the "Killdozer" goes though
a death scene rivaling King Kong’s
tumble of the Empire State Building. (I’m
croaking!) The D-9 starts to glow
and hum again, and then it starts to
convulse. (Keee-roak.) The
glow starts to diminish (KEEE-roak),
and it finally falls silent (KEEE-ROAK.)
As
for Lloyd and Dennis?
Well,
after a hard day of fighting killer earth
moving equipment, by god, it’s Miller
time! (We
freeze frame and the credits roll.)
The
End
Oh
brother, what a stinky turd-burger this
thing is.
Killdozer
was a made for TV movie based on a 1944
short story by Theodore Sturgeon. If
memory serves, the author postulates that
the Earth used to be inhabited by a race
of super-intelligent beings; whose
machines become possessed by some
"intelligent electrons" and
turned on their masters. They create a
"neutronium shield" to combat
the machines, but it, too, was corrupted
and destroyed everything but itself. With
nothing left to do, it sat dormant for
centuries and was eventually discovered by
the native islanders, who worshipped it as
a god.
Along
came World War II, and the island is
targeted by the Allies as a perfect spot
for a strategic airstrip. The engineers
move in and promptly demolish the temple
where the idol was stored. This reactivates
it and the neutronium takes control of
Daisy-Etta, the team’s bulldozer, and it
runs amok, breaking the driver’s back. One
of the engineers "goes of his
spool" and tries to strike a deal,
wanting to team up with the renegade dozer
to save his life. Here, the problem is
also solved with electricity.
Killdozer
holds a special significance for me. It
was the first (quote)
monster movie (unquote) that
I ever remember seeing when I was finally
allowed to stay up and watch the late late
show. (A right of passage I’m
sure we’ve all been through.)
I
hadn’t seen it since -- or even thought
about the film, until I saw it for auction
on eBay. The only thing I really
remembered was that Robert Urich was in it,
and the fact that he died so quickly. (This
was a major disappointment because at the
time, I was a S.W.A.T.
fanatic.
Man I loved the theme to that show.)
The only other vivid memory was a scene
where the Killdozer
rocked its blade back and forth, and I
could have sworn that it had some kind of
menacing mechanical laugh.
Now,
I normally have pretty good luck
revisiting things from my childhood (see
my Flash
Gordon review), but this
time, however, the cinema gods came up
snake-eyes.
The
film teeters precariously on the edge of
being boring -- the ultimate B-Movie sin.
Clint Walker is his usual stoic self, but
he’s just walking through the motions
here and the rest of the cast of '70s
never-weres do an amiable enough job. They
all try hard, but the script allows to
many occasions of the D-9 doing its
dastardly deeds followed by the crew just
sitting around as if nothing ever
happened.
Now,
I can accept the fact that a malicious
meteor crashed on Earth and somehow
managed to take control of bulldozer,
causing it to kill people. Sure, why not.
But
a fifty-ton piece of diesel powered
machinery that can constantly sneak up on
said people?
I
don’t think anybody can drink enough to
make that plausible.
Believe
me, I tried.
And
doggone it, the Killdozer
didn’t laugh even once! *sigh*
|
