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Our
film begins many centuries ago with an
unfortunate looking meteor a'tumblin' toward
a planet suspended on a string; a planet
that looks suspiciously familiar...
After
making a rather [un]spectacular crash
landing, the space rock begins radiating
an unhealthy looking bluish glow, and also
begins to emit a menacing drone. And there
it sat, undisturbed -- until now.
We
switch to the present (--
some time in the mid-70's, judging by the
wardrobe),
and our attention is drawn to six
construction workers clearing and leveling
some land on a tiny, remote Pacific island. Sent
there at the behest of the mega-conglomerate
Warco, these men are on a mission to build
a base camp for an oil refinery.
Apparently, the island in question has
been deserted since it was used as an
airfield during World War II.
However,
the work to reclaim it isn't progressing
fast enough for the man in charge, Lloyd
Kelly (Clint Walker), a
no-nonsense company man, mostly due to the
constant goldbricking of Dutch and Mac (James
Wainwright and a very young Robert Urich).
Rousting these ersatz treasure hunters
out of an old and abandoned barracks,
Lloyd puts these two back to work demolishing
them.
Jumping on the big D-9 bulldozer
Mac fires
it up, and while leveling the few
remaining buildings he runs the blade
right into our mysterious meteorite. Now,
the rock isn't all that big but the dozer
can’t even budge it. Seeing things have
come to a halt again, when an angry Lloyd
wants to know what the hold up is Mac
points out the strange rock, but neither
man can identify the anomalous mini-monolith
because it doesn’t really match "the
geological landscape." But in the end
it doesn't really matter what it is, the
obstacle has to be removed. So, Lloyd
jumps on the D-9, backs it up, and takes
another run at it. Suddenly, as if sensing
the danger, the meteor starts to glow and
whine again, and when Lloyd hits it, there
is a massive discharge of energy that
burns Mac and knocks him off his feet. And
as the men rush to help him, we also
notice that strange blue glow has now transferred
from the rock to the D-9...
Theodore
Sturgeon is a well vetted master of
writing science-fiction, which is kind of
amazing when you consider his limited and
sporadic output. In between interminable
bouts of writer's block, the author penned
some seminal sci-fi pieces, including More
than Human, where six individuals
mesh together for the next step in human evolution, and The Cosmic Rape,
which finds the Earth menaced by the
spores of an extraterrestrial hive-mind,
whose advanced scout finds these
Earthlings fairly unsuitable for their
groupthink way of existence and starts
tinkering. Sturgeon is also famous
for his contributions to the classic Star
Trek franchise. With his "Shore
Leave" and "Amok
Time" episodes, the author laid
the foundation for The Prime Directive and
established several important tenets of
Vulcan mythology, including the hand
signal and phrase of "Live long and
prosper." Sturgeon is also famous for
establishing what has come to be known as
Sturgeon's Law, which can mean either one
of two things. In the first
interpretation, the author, in defense of
his genre, postulated that, yes, "90%
of Sci-fi is crud, but then, 90% of everything
is crud." The second version is a
little more cryptic in that "Nothing
is always absolutely so." Yes,
the man definitely left his mark, but
frankly, you can push all of that stuff to
the side. For, to me, Sturgeon
will always and forever be the guy who wrote
Killdozer.
 Constituting
the author's sole output from 1941-1945, Killdozer
was written in just nine days and was
first published in the November, 1944,
issue of Astounding Science Fiction.
In the novella, Sturgeon postulates that
the Earth used to be inhabited by a race
of super-intelligent beings, whose
machines become possessed by some
"intelligent electrons" that
caused them to turn on their masters.
These beings then create a
"Neutronium Shield" to combat
the possessed machines but it, too, was corrupted
and winds up destroying everything but itself. With
nothing left to do, this Neutronium Shield
sat dormant for
centuries upon centuries until it was eventually discovered by
some native islanders, who worshipped it as
a god. Then, along came World War II and
when its island refuge is targeted by the
Allies as a perfect spot for a strategic
airstrip, the engineers moved in and
promptly demolish the temple where the
idol was stored. This violent action inadvertently
reactivates the Neutronium Shield, which
quickly takes control of Daisy-Etta,
the team's bulldozer. And as it runs amok,
initially breaking its driver's back when
he's bucked off, one of the workers kinda
goes off his spool and tries to strike a
deal with the rogue machine, offering it
full servitude if the machine will spare
his life. Luckily, saner heads prevail and
the "Killdozer" is subdued with
a massive dose of electricity that
disrupts and destroys the Shield's
malignant influence.
Some
30 years after its initial publication, TV
producer Herbert Solow, who had helmed the
likes of Mission: Impossible and Mannix,
approached the brass at ABC with a notion
that Killdozer
would make an awesome made for TV movie
for their network. They agreed, and the
rest, as they say, is Television infamy.
Aside
from simplifying the origin of the
bulldozer's malediction into a menace from
outer space and moving the time of action
to the 1970's, Solow's movie remains
fairly faithful to Sturgeon's novella.
When the shit hits the fan when the dozer
in question strikes the meteorite, Mac's
resulting injuries from the discharge are
extremely grave but medical help can't
reach the isolated outpost for at least
three days. Alas, Mac succumbs to his
wounds long before then, and after the
other men bury him, Lloyd writes the whole
thing off as a freak accident and sends
his grumbling men back to work. When the
foreman takes over the D-9, the machine
begins to act up on him. In fact, one
could say the dozer has developed a mind
of its own as it tries to buck him off.
However, Lloyd manages to cut the hydraulic
lines before it can throw him. Towing the
crippled machine back to camp, Lloyd
orders his mechanic to give the D-9 a
complete going over. But
Chub (Neville
Brand) can’t find anything wrong
with it -- except for a strange, humming
vibration coming from the dozer’s blade.
Beyond that, he fixes the damaged
hydraulics but Lloyd has an
uneasy feeling and declares the D-9
off-limits.
Turns
out Lloyd was right to be worried as the viewer slowly realizes that
the D-9 has, somehow, become sentient with
sociopathic tendencies. And while it
observes Lloyd using the radio, Al (James
Watson), another crewman, needs the
D-9 to complete his assigned task. Ignoring Chub’s
warnings, he cranks the machine up and
puts it into gear. All
seems well at first, but then the dozer
starts behaving rather anti-socially. Soon
enough, the machine is a runaway, with poor Al
impudently stuck in the driver’s seat as
it goes berserk, destroying the camp, and
takes out the radio. Al does manage to bail
off and finds an apparent refuge in some unburied
culvert pipe, but as the dozer circles back
and runs him over -- several times, Lloyd
and Dennis (Carl Betz)
witness the murderous machine’s rampage,
and then watch horrified as it rumbles off into
the jungle with chunks of Al stuck in its
treads.
In
the aftermath, the
four remaining workers manage to salvage
two jeeps, a truck, and some provisions.
The plan is to get to the high ground,
where the dozer can’t get at them, and
wait for the supply ship that's due in two
days. And the makeshift convoy heads out just in time as
the D-9 roars out of the trees and
demolishes what’s left of the camp. But
then, on their way up to the plateau, the D-9 --
somehow, manages to get
ahead of them. Topping that feat, it also
manages to sneak up and pounce on the
truck, rolling it over with it's blade,
with Chub still trapped inside! The vehicle
then explodes before he can get out.
Meanwhile,
the
others safely reach the high ground. But
as they wait and debate on the root cause
of their problem, Dutch starts to lose it
a little because he can’t quite accept the fact
that a bulldozer has come to life and is
apparently hell-bent on killing them all. (Seven
beers in and I can't either -- but I’m
getting there.) As the first night
progresses, the unstable Dutch gets drunk and
decides to go for a swim. Stealing a jeep,
he heads for the beach; but when Dutch
hits the sand, he runs right into the
D-9. And after a brief Mexican stand off, the
jeep stalls out, leaving Dutch to avert his eyes
before the dozer flattens him ... Lloyd
and Dennis arrive in time to see their
friend get squished, and then the
dastardly D-9 sets its anthropomorphic
headlights on them! The men manage to get
to Dennis' excavator and use it to battle
the D-9 to a standstill. Unfortunately,
the excavator wasn't designed to take that
kind of abuse for very long. Luckily,
Lloyd has a plan. The plan being while
Dennis keeps the dozer distracted with the
excavator, he'll rig-up and electric
fly-trap that would make Dewey Martin and
Ken Tobey proud.
With
the trap set, Lloyd offers himself up as
bait, and once he lures the D-9 to right
spot Dennis throws the switch, sending the
Killdozer into some death throes that
rival King Kong's tumble off of the Empire
State Building.
[...
I’m croaking!] First, the D-9 starts to glow
and hum again, and then it starts to
convulse [... Keee-roak]. The
glow starts to diminish [... KEEE-roak
...),
until it finally falls silent [...
KEEE-ROAK).
As
for Lloyd and Dennis? Well,
after a hard day of fighting killer earth
moving equipment, by god, it’s Miller
time! We
freeze frame and the credits roll, leading
us to...
The
End
Killdozer
holds a very special significance for me. It
was the first [quote/]
Monster Movie [/unquote] that
I ever remember seeing when I was finally
allowed to stay up and watch the late late
show. (A right of passage I’m
sure we’ve all been through.) I
hadn’t seen it since -- or even thought
about the film, until I saw it for auction
on eBay. The only thing I really
remembered was that Robert Urich was in
it, and the fact that he died so quickly. (This
was a major disappointment because, at the
time, I was a huge S.W.A.T.
fanatic.
Man I loved the theme to that show.)
The only other vivid memory was a scene
where the Killdozer
rocked its blade back and forth, and I
could have sworn that it had some kind of
menacing mechanical laugh as the thing did
it's dirty deeds.
Now,
I normally have pretty good luck
revisiting things from my childhood
but this
time, however, the cinema gods came up
snake-eyes as the tele-film
teeters precariously on the precipice of
being boring -- the ultimate B-Movie sin.
Clint Walker is his usual stoic self, but
he’s just walking through the motions
while the rest of the cast of '70s
never-weres do an amiable enough job. They
all try hard, but the script allows too
many occasions of the D-9 doing its
rampaging thing followed by the crew just
sitting around as if nothing ever
happened.
For
the record,
I can accept the fact that a malicious
meteor crashed on Earth and somehow
managed to take control of bulldozer,
causing it to kill people. Sure, why not.
But
a fifty-ton piece of diesel powered
machinery that can constantly sneak up on
said people?
I
don’t think anybody can drink enough to
make that plausible.
Believe
me, I tried.
And
doggone it, the Killdozer
didn’t laugh even once! *sigh*
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