“Thank you for bringing this back to life.” Although apt, that’s not a line from Tammy and the T-Rex, but from the lips of its director Stewart Raffill instead, extolling his gratitude to Bret Berg of the American Genre Film Archive in the film’s Blu-ray commentary track. Raffill is chuffed that people are finally getting to see his movie properly for the first time since he handed it to its financiers more than two-and-a-half decades ago. Never heard of it? Don’t feel too bad; Tammy and the T-Rex has been overlooked by even the most hardcore fans of cult cinema. And for good reason. Much like Paul Walker’s character in the movie, it was butchered by a madman…
In one of his earliest roles, the future Fast and Furious star plays Michael, a teenager who runs afoul of bullies who take umbrage with him falling for Denise Richards’ titular Tammy (or Tanny, as the credits bizarrely insist for reasons even the director cannot explain). Michael’s troubles are only just beginning when he’s left for dead in a lion sanctuary, as his comatose body is stolen by an opportunistic evil scientist intent on gifting the world with his latest creation – a robot dinosaur fused with the brain of a human. Once Michael’s cerebral matter has been relieved of his body, his new T-Rex self escapes to seek retribution upon those who wronged him, and sets about reconnecting with his widowed girlfriend Tammy.
This wonderful release from 101 Films not only acquaints UK audiences to this camp would-be classic for the very first time, but it also returns the film to its original form. If you’re one of the few readers who did manage to see the movie in the years since its 1994 debut, then you’ll sadly only have ever seen it in a heavily edited cut which excised all its gore effects. (And in a movie about a T-Rex on a literal roaring rampage of revenge, it’s natural that there were quite a few!) These cuts, enforced by a producer who decided after the fact that they wanted a family-friend picture instead of the horror-comedy that was written and shot, handicapped any success the film would have surely gone on to receive. Front and centre on this Blu-ray release is the fully restored version, not just in the reinstating of its Troma-style sadistic streak and other R-rated elements, but also in terms of the newly polished picture, which looks every bit as perfect as collectors have become accustomed.
The unmastered PG-13 version is still present here for the curious, though rightly it’s relegated to an extra. It sits alongside recently filmed individual interviews with its writer/director, and actors Denise Richards, George Pilgrim, and Sean Whalen, who all seem as equally pleased as Raffill to see their forgotten movie receive a second shot. An informative, candid commentary rounds out the package, filling us in on the film’s calamitous saga. But thanks to this most unlikely of restorations, at least the story of Tammy and the T-Rex got a happy ending. Life finds a way, indeed.
