Killdozer (1974)

You won't be disappointed!

Why so much hype?

Great Film overall

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Clint Walker plays a construction crew foreman in Africa who accidentally unearths a meteor fragment, that somehow contains/is an alien creature, who "possesses" their bulldozer, and sets out to kill them one by one...Main problem with this TV film is that it is too thin, with a short running time that barely covers story-telling basics to involve the viewer in the strange goings-on, especially when none of the characters(except perhaps Robert Urich) is in any way interesting or distinguished; they're mostly Killdozer fodder, and just what the alien is remains frustratingly vague, leading to the ho-hum ending that fails to satisfy. Theodore Sturgeon's original story deserves to be given another effort, though this film does have a cult following!

Killdozer (1974) ** (out of 4) A small construction crew working on a tiny island off an African coast come across a mysterious blue rock, which they try to move without any luck. Even worse is that this blue rock came from outer space thousands of years earlier and now it has possessed the large bulldozer, which is trying to kill the crew. This made-for-TV film is based on the Theodore Sturgeon novel, although it's worth noting that Stephen King came out with his short story "Truck" the previous year and you have to wonder how much of King's story he knew from the earlier one by Sturgeon. Either way, this here is a pretty bland film but then again, the majority of the films dealing with trucks coming to life are. I mean, there's really just so much suspension of disbelief that you can have without it just becoming downright silly and I think this film here just lacks any suspense to make it work. I also thought it was pretty boring as more often than not nothing is really happening and we're left with the characters sitting around talking and telling stories. This includes a running (bad) joke dealing with one of them constantly wanting to go swimming. Another problem is that the bulldozer doesn't go very fast so everyone could just run away from it but never do. The cast includes Clint Walker, Carl Betz, Neville Brand and a young Rober Urich but none of them can save the picture. KILLDOZER has a catchy title but sadly the film doesn't live up to much.

With a premise like this, it should have been funny, but alas, from minute one, as the awful font appeared, I found myself thinking that it was pretty lame.A Styrofoam meteorite plops down on a postage-stamp-sized island off the coast of Africa (not "a small Pacific Island during WWII", as Bill Leue wrote in his bewildering plot summary) where a construction crew, hacking out a base-camp for an oil company (not "building an airstrip" either, Bill) unearth said meteorite in the sand (There is also no "ancient non-material lifeform which has lived in the ruins of an ancient temple for millenia" either, Bill. What the hell movie did you watch? And what the hell is a non-material lifeform?) which proceeds to glow blue, and kill a guy, somehow. The blue glowing light thingie possesses the bulldozer, and it very, very slowly takes out another man on the crew, so dimwitted that he just simply sits in his jeep for nearly 20 seconds while Killdozer slowly meanders its way toward him, and *SPLAT*. It proceeds to stalk the remaining crew members, taking them out, very slowly, one by one. Killdozer even runs over their radio, eliminating any chance of contacting anyone with it. Who could they call, and what could they tell them? That they're being stalked by a bulldozer come to life? Clint Walker overacting outrageously, impersonating Clint Eastwood throughout the entire film is neither funny nor does he make a convincing hero. The "villian", Killdozer, was silly and, even if Killdozer had managed to kill the entire crew, so what? It would still be stuck, left to rust on that tiny little postage-stamp-sized island off the coast of Africa.Disappointingly dull and ultimately pointless.

No, just kidding. But isn't it what you want to say about this movie? Other than that, it's a space rock that meets a bulldozer. They fall in love, and decide to reenact the Terminator 10 years early. For some reason this bulldozer now hates those gave it a reason for existence and it's bound to put them out of existence.Problem is bulldozers move at like, what, five miles an hour. I could probably walk and get away from a bulldozer. Yet on an island that seems big enough, and in jeeps they can't seem to get away from the slowest most plodding movie villain ever.I guess that's why I love this movie. It's funny, it's unbelievable. It's so bad it's good. Besides it gave us the most memorable line in a movie ever, "In about a hundred years, I may get to like you."