That New, "Jurassic World: Rebirth," Continues to Look Intriguingly Weird

I have previously commented that the new, "Jurassic World: Rebirth," movie seems to be leaning more into body-horror and the scary aspects of dinosaurs--especially the failed experiments from when the park was first working at making dinos come back from the dead. A friend of mine saw an advanced showing via the surprise/secret movie thing AMC theaters do, and they confirmed that the flick brings a lot of scary elements to the forefront. It makes sense, as even the first, "Jurassic Park," could be argued as a bit of a horror movie with dinosaurs instead of monsters. 

If you really think about it, as this fantastic article by Martin Kessler points out, there are no dinosaurs in Jurassic Park, even. After all, as early as the first movie, these creatures are a mess of fragmented DNA mixed wth amphibians (and in later films, Indominus Rex has a bunch of various stuff blended in). It gives the movies a clever, "Out," if the dinosaurs aren't exactly realistic, the more scientists figure out regarding dinos--these aren't real dinosaurs! The latest movie emphasizes that, and it has me quite interested in checking the flick out--even if reviews are quite mixed. I mean, it can't be any worse than, "Jurassic Park III," I'd imagine.

A Thought About, "Jurassic Word: Rebirth," and Some Potential it Shows

The first trailer is out for, "Jurassic World: Rebirth." It is the latest movie in what has grown into a big epic continuity of Jurassic Park/World. This latest movie follows the earlier ones while also offering a bit of a clean slate. The dinosaurs that flooded into the rest of our world have retreated to a small number of islands near the Equator (so much for the cool imagery of dinosaurs around the planet) and have mostly been forgotten. However, if a group of scientists and mercenaries can get the blood of three massive dinosaurs it provides medical data or something, I don't know, it sounds silly. There is one aspect I noticed that has some potential, however. Specifically, a hint of body horror.

The Jurassic Park/World franchise has been flailing about for ideas lately. It showed a little weird promise with, "Fallen Kingdom," when it turned into a strange, "Monster in a Mansion," movie for the second half with a genetically altered raptor, but then, "Dominion," was a bit of a slog. The director of this latest flick is Gareth Edwards, however, and he excels at big monsters (he did some Godzilla work) and has done some horror flicks too, so I wonder if some glimpses in the previews of deformed dinosaurs (two-headed raptors, a weird pseudo-T-Rex) hint that this flick could get a little strange, in a good way. I'm all for, "Jurassic World," getting a bit weird as the whole, "Dinosaurs on an island hunt humans," plot point needs some tweaks to stay fresh. Deformed or monstrous dinosaurs stalking humans at least sounds a bit creepy and bizarre. 

I don't know how heavily, "Jurassic World: Rebirth," will lean into being horror-styled, but even all the way back in the first, "Jurassic Park," some of the best scenes were the scary ones (I adore the intensity of when Laura Dern is trying to turn on the electricity and gets attacked by Raptors). The idea that the seventh(!) movie in this series could try something new is at least a little encouraging.