By Erin Free
In this regular column, we drag forgotten made-for-TV movies out of the vault and into the light. This week: the 1974 sci-fi suspense thriller Killdozer starring Clint Walker, Carl Betz, Robert Urich and Neville Brand.
Though based on a 1944 short story by prolific fantasy and sci-fi author Theodore Sturgeon, the spectre of Steven Spielberg’s 1971 killer-truck TV movie classic Duel hangs low over the 1974 minor cult fave Killdozer, a telemovie which has enjoyed a surprisingly hearty life after its initial broadcast on major US network ABC. The bizarre tale of, yes, a murderous bulldozer, this tight little sci-fi suspense flick inspired, firstly, a splashy, souped-up, small-screen-to-page Marvel Comics adaptation just after its broadcast (a very rare feat for a telemovie); secondly, a noted hard rock band to take the film’s amusingly hyped-up title as its own moniker; and thirdly, the media to use the film’s title to describe the gruesomely modified bulldozer created by deranged grudge-holder Marvin John Heemeyer to destroy several civic buildings and residences in his small Colorado hometown of Granby in 2004. That’s pretty impressive pop cultural cache for a film that grumpy killjoy Andrew Smith from the British film review website Popcorn Pictures called “dreadful fare which should have been left to rust on the seventies scrap heap. It’s hard trying to find positives to say about it.” Sure, it’s no masterpiece – and it’s certainly no Duel – but we actually find it very easy to find positives about Killdozer…beginning with its totally kick-arse title!
After the swirling Universal planet Earth logo gives Killdozer a surprising dash of cred, the inventively low-budget film begins with some kind of rock hurtling menacingly through space before finally landing on an idyllic deserted island. Many, many years later, that same island – which we learn is located 200 miles off the coast of Africa – is getting dug up by a team of men (sorry, modern viewers, there are, indeed, literally zero women in Killdozer) from The Warburton Oil Resources Company, who are rifling the virgin land for its various natural goodies. When a bulldozer piloted by young crew member Mack (future TV star Robert Urich of Vega$ and Spenser For Hire fame in an early role) makes contact with the aforementioned space rock, a blue flash of lightning horribly injures Mack, and then appears to seep into the bulldozer itself.
From this point forward, it is literally game-on, with an innocent bulldozer now under the control of a mysterious alien life-form, the sole intention and purpose of which is apparently to kill any human unfortunate enough to cross its path. This means the small crew of workers from The Warburton Oil Resources Company left completely isolated on an island in the middle of nowhere are now marked for death by a rampaging, but somewhat slow-moving, killing machine. This disparate group of oilmen – serious, no-nonsense team leader Lloyd Kelly (played with likeable if not exactly expressive stoicism by towering macho man Clint Walker, best known as one of The Dirty Dozen and for the popular western TV series Cheyenne); fast-talking trouble-maker Dennis Holvig (Carl Betz effectively fills in all the film’s silences); simple, slightly downbeat boozer Dutch Krasner (inexplicably billed “special guest star” James Wainwright gives the film its limited emotional heft); tell-it-like-it-is mechanic Chub Foster (superb character actor Neville Brand is at his wonderfully craggy faced best…but seriously, when is he not?); and exuberant nice guy Beltran (James A. Watson Jr. does his best with a small role) – must put aside their differences and work together if they are to survive the gnashing, crunching metallic onslaught of the…Killdozer!
Directed with great economy by hard-working, done-it-all TV veteran Jerry London (Shogun, Chiefs, Ellis Island), and played admirably straight by its cast, Killdozer is a wildly entertaining small screen joy. There is a great sense of play about this telemovie, which almost feels like – and this is actually meant as a compliment, and not pejoratively – a fun game being played by a particularly imaginative, and amusingly destructive, little kid with his fleet of toy trucks. There are constantly cars and jeeps whizzing around all over the place, and the men almost look like action figures with their hard-hats and overalls. You can practically hear a childish voice bellowing “And this one can be the…Killdozer!” as the alien-possessed bulldozer roars to murderous life. The film’s many critics would likely concur that the film’s plot feels like the work of a child too, but that’s part of this crazy little flick’s charm.
There are eye-catchingly odd flourishes to the film too, which really make it stick tight in the receptive viewer’s memory. The Killdozer’s attacks are accompanied not only by the murderous machine’s blinking headlights and a sputtering exhaust pipe that give it creepy, menacing “life”, but also by a trippy, cacophonous electronic score of bleeps and bips by noted jazz-man and composer Gil Melle (The Andromeda Strain) that gift the otherwise straight-up Killdozer with an almost surrealistic vibe. There are winningly odd beats to the film’s dialogue and characterisation too, with James Wainwright’s Dutch a curiously peculiar inclusion. In one strange scene, Dutch quietly recalls the fun he and his buddy Mack would have when they’d go “swimming at night, splashing around like a couple of jaybirds”, and then attempts to get the other men to join him for a midnight dip. The underlying homoeroticism here certainly adds another dimension to Killdozer.
Yes, it’s a little silly (much has been made of the questionable ferocity of a slow-moving bulldozer, along with some of the very dumb decisions made by the film’s characters), but there’s just something so…right about Killdozer. Its economic 74-minute running time doesn’t allow for too much thought on the film’s goofy plot, and its brave actors commit and sell it with flair, drawing the audience right into the crazy world of Killdozer. Don’t we all wish we’d thought up this cool game when we were smashing our own Tonka trucks together as wide-eyed little kids?
Availability: Released on DVD and Blu-Ray thanks to its minor cult cache, Killdozer is fairly easy to track down in good visual and audio shape.
If you enjoyed this review, check out our other vintage telemovies The Jericho Mile, Death Car On The Freeway, Mongo’s Back In Town, Tribes and And The Band Played On.
