Carnosaur 2 is a 1995 action horror film, and the sequel to the 1993 film Carnosaur. It is the second of the Carnosaur film series. It stars John Savage, Cliff DeYoung, Rick Dean, Ryan Thomas Johnson, Arabella Holzbog and Don Stroud. The film is about a team of technicians who go to the Yucca Mountain nuclear mining facility to investigate problems concerning power and communications. They discover that the facility has been overrun by cloned dinosaurs. The film's plot shares many similarities with the 1986 film Aliens.
Before its predecessor had completed production, Carnosaur 2 was already being planned by executive producer Roger Corman. Effects artist John Carl Buechler returned for the sequel, which re-used his dinosaur models from the original Carnosaur. Filming took place during an 18-day shoot, including a week of filming at a power plant near Castaic Lake in California. Carnosaur 2 was released direct-to-video in mid-February 1995. It received mixed reviews; criticism was aimed at its special effects, although the cast was generally praised. The film was followed by a sequel, Carnosaur 3: Primal Species, in 1996.
Plot[]
At a desert facility called Yucca Mountain, an orphaned teenage hacker boy named Jesse is caught trying to steal dynamite. His uncle Joe, a worker at the site, stops him. That night, an animal appears at the facility's mess hall and kills everyone but Jesse.
When communications from the facility cease, a repair team of civilian technicians are called in to investigate, as the site had been experiencing power issues. The team are led by Major Tom McQuade of the Department of Defense. McQuade explains that Yucca Mountain is a military operated uranium mine, usually off limits to civilians. However, the facility has a schedule to keep, and the group was the closest team available on such short notice. The investigators find the place deserted; three go to the control room to try to reboot the computer system, while the other three form a search party. They locate Jesse, catatonic and in a state of shock, and take him to the control room.
The team wants to leave, feeling unsafe about the situation, although McQuade orders them back to work. The team realizes that the issues with the communications equipment cannot be resolved from the control room, concluding that they must venture down into the facility to find the cause of the problem. Although the lowest levels are classified, the team proceeds to investigate them as well, despite objections from McQuade. Helicopter pilot Galloway and computer expert Moses stay in the control center with Jesse. When an animal kills team member Kahane, the rest of the crew flee the lower floors. Jesse, listening to their radio chatter, realizes what happened and flees the room just before a Velociraptor appears and kills Moses. Galloway flees to the helicopter and starts the engine. Before the crew can reach her, a Velociraptor in the back seat attacks her. During a struggle, the helicopter is inadvertently lifted. The dinosaur kills Galloway and the helicopter crashes, stranding the crew.
The group returns to the control room. They demand answers from McQuade, who reluctantly tells them about the dinosaurs' origins: two months earlier, a biotech firm had been working with fossilized DNA and genetic experiments, finding a way to recreate dinosaurs. The government had sent in a team to contain the situation, and dozens of eggs were discovered and were stored at Yucca Mountain. The dinosaurs later hatched and killed the facility workers. Jesse informs the team of the facility's dynamite, and they decide to use it to blow up the plant and its dinosaurs, despite McQuade's objections. Demanding further answers from McQuade, he tells the team that the lower levels of the facility are a repository for atomic waste, including dozens of warheads. Radiation is now leaking from a containment unit, damaged by the dinosaurs, and a repository failure will occur in less than two hours, potentially setting off the warheads.
Jesse devises a plan to crash the computers to send the site into emergency mode, which should get an evacuation squad to rescue them. Once the plan is put into place, the group begins making their way back to the surface, using dynamite rigged with tripwires to hold off the dinosaurs while getting to the elevator. A Velociraptor breaks into the elevator and eats Rawlins. The elevator's cables snap and it crashes. After they escape the elevator, Monk is injured as he accidentally activates a tripwire while fleeing from a Velociraptor. Too injured to walk, Monk and McQuade blow themselves up to kill the remaining Velociraptors.
Jesse and Reed continue onward, but Reed trips over a wire and dangles from a platform, eventually suffering a long fall. Jesse makes his way to the surface and finds the evacuation team waiting, but they refuse to retrieve Reed due to the facility's imminent explosion. Jesse runs back in himself and helps Reed, and they narrowly avoid a Tyrannosaurus rex on their way to the rescue helicopter.
Jesse runs back and grabs the remote detonator to trigger the remaining dynamite. The T. rex bursts out of the building and kills one of the rescue team members. Jesse gets in a telescopic handler and uses it to battle the dinosaur, eventually pushing it down a large elevator shaft. The helicopter takes off, and Jesse detonates the rest of the dynamite, destroying the facility and preventing a meltdown.