A 1994 Movie in Which Paul Walker's Brain Gets Transplanted Into a T-Rex Is Getting a 'Gory' Streaming Re-Release

Philip Ellis

December 22, 2019 4:36 PM

While the late Paul Walker is remembered primarily for his role in the long-running Fast & Furious action franchise, his contributions to the cinematic canon don't end there. All the way back in 1994, when he was right at the start of his career, Walker appeared in a bizarre science-fiction-comedy mashup alongside fellow rising star Denise Richards.

This 90s Movie Puts Paul Walker's Brain in a T-Rex

Its title? Tammy and the T-Rex.

The premise was simple. Tammy (Richards) is a teenage cheerleader who boyfriend Michael (Walker) is injured and ends up in a coma. A series of perfectly reasonable events results in Michael's brain being transplanted into the body of a robotic tyrannosaurus rex by a mad scientist as part of an experiment designed to achieve immortality. When the newly dino-fied Michael crashes a party, Tammy realizes it's her beau, and must race against time to find him a new, more suitable body.

"A guy came to me who owned theatres in South America and he said, 'I have a T-Rex,'" says screenwriter and director Stewart Raffill . "It was animatronic and was going to a park in Texas. The eyes worked. The arms moved. The head moved. He had it for two weeks before it was going to be shipped to Texas and he came to me and said, 'We can make a movie with it!' I said, 'Whats the story?' and he said, 'I dont have a story, but we have to start filming within the month!' and so I wrote the story in a week. You obviously couldnt play it as an actual monster, because it wasnt that good of an animatronic beast and I had to work with what was available, so that was the concept I came up with... I was just trying to do a film for people that like wacky movies."

It might have been forgotten, but Tammy and the T-Rex was actually the first movie either Walker or Richards had ever starred in. "The casting was interesting because we had two young cast members in Paul Walker and Denise Richards," says Raffill. "It was Pauls first film and he so adorable and friendly. He was 17 years old and had the most amazing smile. Denise hadnt done anything either."

This 90s Movie Puts Paul Walker's Brain in a T-Rex BusinessInsider USA Images

While the wacky hijinks are to be expected from a movie riding on the coattails of the era that brought us Drop Dead Fred and Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead, the tone of Tammy and the T-Rex was originally intended to be darker, but the gory scenes were removed in the United States so the movie would appeal to a family audience.

This year, however, disribution company Vinegar Syndrome acquired the rights to the movie and released the "gore cut" in theaters, with ten extra minutes of footage. And come January, Tammy and the T-Rex will be available to stream on horror platform Shudder, in all its bizarre, gory glory.

Philip Ellis