Killdozer (1974) — Triskaidekafiles

KILLDOZER

WRITERS: Teleplay by Theodore Sturgeon and Ed MacKilop

Adapted by Herbert F. Solow

DIRECTOR: Jerry London

STARRING: Starring: Clint Walker as Lloyd Kelly

Carl Betz as Dennis Holvig

Neville Brand as Chub Foster

James Wainwright as Dutch Krasner

Robert Urich as McCarthy

James A. Watson, Jr. as Beltran

QUICK CUT: A rough and tumble group of construction workers struggle to get a site cleared for future construction amidst equipment malfunctions.

THE MORGUE

Lloyd Kelly - The foreman at the construction site, the man in charge, and while he’s tough on his workers, he’s normally easy to get along with. He also has a past history of screwing up a previous job, and is struggling to recover his reputation after that.

Dutch - One of the workers at the site, and the local guy who likes to challenge authority.

Holvig - Kelly’s second in command, always has his back, but as the main liason between Kelly and the crew, he does his best to let both sides know when they’re overstepping.

Chubs - The mechanic on site, with a flagrant disregard for smoking signs around flammable items.

The dark, gritty reboot of Fraggle Rock we’ve all been waiting for.

TRISK ANALYSIS: Welcome back, Triskelions! This week...well, this week, we have no random reason, no lengthy buildup, just a good ol' classic cheesy movie that some people have heard of, but few believe actually exist; Killdozer! It’s also a decent flick to put next to Doomwatch as a bit of ecological horror.

The movie opens up with a pretty decent shot of a meteor falling to Earth, landing on an island, and time passing. Eventually, the Warburton construction company shows up to build something after clearing up an old WW2 base. I hear this is where Patrick got his fortune from.

Foreman Lloyd Kelly finds one of his workers has gotten his equipment stuck in the mud, and tries to track down some other workers and their earthmover to get the thing back on track.

Kelly finds his workers shirking their duties and digging around the old abandoned buildings of the refueling station, and tells Dutch and Mac to get back to work.

Mac knocks down the building they were just in, and his machine gets caught trying to move a giant ball of tin foil out of the dirt; the meteorite from the opening flyby.

Kelly gets in the machine to show Mac "How it's done" and as he dislodges the meteor, it glows blue, and the shine transfers into the bulldozer. And the transfer somehow causes a blast of radiation that catches Mac in the process.

They get the injured Mac to a bed, and try and get help, but being a remote island in the 70s, help is not coming there anywhere soon, because as Kelly says "They might as well be on the moon."

He goes to check on Mac, who is not doing good, but wants to speak to the foreman, alone. Dutch especially does not want to leave his friend, blaming Kelly for the accident, but reluctantly leaves.

Once everyone has left, Mac tries to tell Kelly what he saw, but it gets dismissed as the ravings of a dying man in pain.

Kelly lets the others know Mac died, and they bury him for the time being, while Kelly tries to move the bulldozer. His efforts receive some resistance though. The bulldozer has other ideas, and takes over driving duties.

He tries to slice some of the fuel lines or something, bails out, and the dozer nearly runs him over before coming to a stop.

The boys give Mac a good Irish wake complete with whiskey, telling tales and getting drunk, until Kelly puts his foot down, they have work in the morning.

He attends to the wounds he got bailing from the bulldozer, and Holvig grabs a smoke near the machine, while it tries to sneak up on him and do some damage.

Krasner repairs the damage Kelly did so they can get the machine back to work, since everything seems okay. They're still a little hesitant though, until Beltran decides to grab it anyways.

Once the machine is started back up though, it once again has a mind of its own, and just so happens to take out their radio.

The bulldozer takes off, and Beltran has to wait until it's rolling over some softer sand before he can jump clear. But once he does, the machine takes an interest in him, and hiding in a pipe doesn't stop it from turning him into a pile of toothpaste.

Kelly and Holvig have a chat, and they both know what's going on, and are struggling to come to grips with it, reluctant to believe.

Holvig, however, heads out to check on the Killdozer, and finds it rumbling around knocking down posts. It seems to notice him, and I just wanna say, whomever it was controlling the machine, actually found some good moments of 'acting' with it. It definitely has personality and character to its actions.

He confronts Kelly with a piece of meteorite, and convinces him the only logical explanation is aliens. Even if he doesn't quite believe it, they have to do something; like blow up the dozer.

The two of them go to tell what's left of the crew, but once they're clear of the camp, the Killdozer rolls in and knocks over most of their settlement, and sets off a bunch of dynamite, with little to no ill effects.

Once it leaves, they refuel the surviving cars, and head out to put some distance between them, buy some time, and try and come up with a plan.

They make a signal fire to try and get some help before their supply ship shows up in a few days, but Killdozer can't have that, and drives in snuffing it out under its treads.

So next they try and set up a trap to ram it with Chubs' fuel truck and make it go boom, but the Killdozer anticipates this, beats them to the road, and pounces.

Chubs doesn't get out of the truck in time, and is instead the victim of a carsplosion as Killdozer rolls the truck.

While they bury the latest body, and realise this machine is clever, and just watching them, it eventually gets bored, and starts pushing rocks down at them to kill and/or scare the humans

They drive off and catch their breath in a ravine, which surely won't prove to be a terrible idea, until Killdozer shows up and chases them some more.

The avalanche has already started. It is too late for the pebbles to vote.

Everyone has an uneventful night of catching their breath, but once morning comes, a drunk Dutch takes their only vehicle and drives off, declaring he is going swimming.

Unfortunately, the lifeguard on duty is Killdozer, and he squishes Dutch before he gets the chance to cool off.

The two survivors run for the backhoe, and use its bucket to actually keep the thing at bay for a few minutes until they come up with their next plan.

Kelly and Holvig realise they're going against this all wrong. They can't kill the machine, but the creature inside it, the energy, that they might be able to take out.

They see a generator that's a bit damaged but should be fixable, and some metal plates they can use to try and give it an electrocutional.

But the Killdozer still seems too clever, and despite their luring it, it begins to turn away from their trap.

Kelly jumps out of the vehicle he's in to give it the personal touch, and the taunting actually works.and so does their plan.

I gotta say, the ending is kinda anticlimactic. Not so much in the plan, or the actions, but the execution. The machine hits the plates, they throw a swtich, it twitches a bit, then stops. I know it would've been special effecty and probably cheesy, but some electrical bolts sparking around, sparks going off, an explosion, SOMEthing to cap this off instead of a near literal fizzle. Still, it mostly works, and I am judging it on 21st century flash.

TRISK ASSESSMENT

Video: Looks very good, especially for an early 70s movie.

Audio: It sounds quite good, although being limited to the audio at the time, it won’t blow the doors off your sound cabinet. But there’s some decent noise, which is good, what with all the heavy machinery.

Sound Bite: “Pain makes me snide”

Body Count: It’s a small cast, so not much here, not even random victims to deal with, but it comes out to about 2/3rds of the cast, which isn’t bad

1 - 15 minutes or so, and Mac dies from the radiation blast

2 - Beltran gets squished in a pipe

3 - Chubs gets run off the road and goes boom.

4 - Killdozer interupts Dutch's swim

Best Corpse: Mac gets the shoutout, since most of the rest happen off camera, or cleverly hidden, and we get to spend time with his slightly roasted face.

Blood Type - F+: Being a made for tv movie, it’s not surprising there’s no blood, and the sole makeup effects are on Mac’s face, and they’re okay

Drink Up! Every time the bulldozer warbles.

Movie Review: This has, again, that nice 1970s charm to it. The cast is solid enough, likeable when they need to be, and the plot is refreshingly basic and straightforward. But it is a very basic story, even if it is well made, and there’s just not a whole lot here. It’s biggest problem is how much stuff just kinda happens, and I feel like stuff was lost in translation from the book to screen. Very much a movie that is fine for what it is though, three out of five bottles of whiskey.

Entertainment Value: There’s really not much to write about for this section. It’s fun seeing a movie from the 70s actually attempt and pull off the ‘driverless car’ killer vehicle trope, and do it quite well. And a bulldozer is a genuine threat. Still, aside from some camp value, not much to say. Two out of five glowing meteors