The Invisible Raptor - Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

The Invisible Raptor



Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:



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Movie
One of the biggest hurdles in low-budget creature feature flicks is the ballooning budget that comes from the “monster” itself. And of course, there are a myriad of ways to limit that ballooning budget for those running on a razor’s edge. You can limit the amount of time that the creature is on screen, or use shadows. Then there’s the classic “man in a cheap suit” method of ye-olden days, and of course crummy CGI. But hey, there’s always a way around using any budget at all for said beasty, and that’s by simply writing into the script that it’s invisible due to government experiments. Which is exactly what the powers that be behind The Invisible Raptor decided on going with for this big hunk of Velveeta cheese-fest before us today.

OK, it’s not hard to judge simply by the title that The Invisible Raptor isn’t exactly going to take itself too seriously. While a lot of horror films take themselves seriously and fall into the “so bad it’s good” category, The Invisible Raptor leans into the joke of having an invisible dinosaur walking around eating people so hard that they fall over. Kind of like The Evil Dead, the flick comes across more of a “splatstick” horror film than anything. Campy to the extreme, and filled with hilarious kill scenes to make up for the lack of an actual monster.

There’s a lot in the film that simply has to be taken at face value or the audience is going to have their heads explode from the silliness, but rolling with things can be a bit hard. Sufficed to say everything starts with a secret government experiment involving the creation of an invisible raptor (for who knows what reason, no one explains, and no one cares) that ends up becoming a bit TOO smart for its own good. Escaping his captors (including Sean Astin, who is portrayed front and center on the cover art/poster while only being in the film less than 5 minutes), the beast heads out into the wide world to cause mayhem and terror.

Segueing over to the human protagonists, we’re introduced to Dr. Grant Walker (Mike Capes, also co-writer of the film), a paleontologist who is forced to entertain kids at the local dinosaur museum after his partner screwed him out of a huge find. Turns out that he’s a bit of an expert on raptors, and after having identified the feces of our escaped dino marvel at the scene of a murder as raptor poo, is on the hunt to see if he can find this relic of an ancient time before it kills anyone else. Add in the “Officer Doofy” type sidekick Denny (David Shackelford) and a scantily clad ex-lover (Caitlin McHugh), and we have stupidly campy gorefest that does everything it sets out to do. Chase an invisible raptor.




Rating:

Rated R for bloody violence and gore, crude sexual material, drug use, and brief graphic nudity.




Video:

Filmed digitally (judging by the aesthetics and budget) and most LIKELY finished with a 2K master, The Invisible Raptor comes to home video with a very solid-looking 1.78:1 AVC encode. It’s a fairly clean affair for the most part, with some amber hues overlaying the nighttime shots that make up most of the film, and detail levels are more than adequate. Digital noise is kept to a minimum (except that shot as they go under the bridge around the 1 hour and 40-minute mark), but color banding in the dark shots is a bit of an eyesore. Otherwise fine detailing looks really solid, and colors are warm and inviting in daylight scenes.









Audio:

The 5.1 DTS-HD MA track may not be a Transformers powerhouse track, but it certainly gets the job done well. Vocals are crisp and cleanly located up in the front of the room, and the raptor’s roars and pounding feet make for some solid low-end engagement. Same with panning effects as the raptor munches and crunches his victims. Overall, it’s a solid sounding 5.1 mix and does everything well, but never spectacularly.











Extras:

• Theatrical Trailer
• Well Go USA Previews

Final Score:
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The Invisible Raptor is what you might call a bit of a guilty pleasure. As a lifelong horror fanatic, I can sort of roll with the punches in the genre, and have fun with even some of the worst budgeted horror films. But very rarely do we get an utterly absurd campfest such as this little gem. Most of the fun comes from the various red-shirt deaths throughout the film rather than great writing, but I did get more than a few chuckles out of the whole thing. But yeah, I’m not going to sugarcoat a turd and call it a roast beef sandwich as The Invisible Raptor is by NO MEANS a good movie. It’s just a fun little indie romp that is going to appeal to a niche audience. Well Go USA’s Blu-ray looks and sounds very good, but as is the case, we’ve only got to have the typical anemic extras that most Well Go USA films suffer from. At the end of the day, I’m going to give this thing a simple head nod, as I had fun with it, but am in no way going to gush and rave over the silliness. Fans of “splatstick” horror will probably want to give it a spin, though, as it’s surprisingly decent for what it is.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Mike Capes, Sandy Martin, Sean Astin, David Shackelford, Caitlin McHugh
Directed by: Mikey Hermosa
Written by: Mike Capes, Johnny Wickham
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1 AVC
Audio: English: DTS-HD MA 5.1, English DD 2.0
Subtitles: English, Spanish
Studio: Well Go USA
Rated: R
Runtime: 113 minutes
Blu-Ray Release Date: February 4th, 2025

Recommendation: Interesting, if not bizarre, watch

 

[Sonnie Parker]

What's next... The Invisible Raptor meets The Predator

 

[ClaireGarcia]

I watched this at a film festival earlier this year and enjoyed it. I can't wait to see it again and share it with my friends.