KILLDOZER and the Dream Job

KILLDOZER (1974)

Starring Clint Walker, Carl Betz, Neville Brand, James Wainwright, Robert Urich, James A. Watson Jr. Directed by Jerry London. (74 min)

Essay by D.M. ANDERSON💀

So my wife, Francie, and I were out running errands when she half-jokingly suggested we get licensed to operate bulldozers and offer our services to people or businesses who might need stuff moved. 

Though I’m semi-retired and living fairly comfortably, I replied, “How much does a bulldozer actually cost?” 

“We wouldn’t buy one,” she countered. “We’d just drive them.”

While I don’t know if that’s how the business actually works, the idea of a husband & wife bulldozing team actually sounded kinda cool. But exactly how does one become a bulldozer driver? “Are there bulldozer schools or something?”

“There has to be,” Francie said. “They don’t let just anybody drive one.”

I briefly thought of telling her about the time when I was a kid, when I wandered into an unattended construction area. It was the weekend, so nobody was working and all the heavy duty equipment was parked wherever their operators’ shift ended on Friday. Like snoozing giants, a couple of big yellow dozers laid dormant nearby, too tempting to resist going in for a closer inspection. After climbing into the cab of the closest one, I started moving levers and pushing buttons, and to my utter terror, the damn thing lurched and roared to life. 

Practically pissing myself, I leaped down, jumped on my bike and sped away, leaving the growling beast behind, my active imagination entertaining the notion that it might come after me…angry that I woke it from its weekend slumber. Even a quarter mile away, I could still hear it roaring and briefly considered returning to the scene of the crime to try and shut it down. But hell, I wasn’t sure exactly how I started it in the first place. No…best to scamper away unseen, and having just seen Killdozer on TV, I had no further desire to incur the machine’s wrath.

While that dozer debacle instilled me with a healthy respect for them, it now seemed plausible that, with a little hands-on training under my belt, I could master their awesome power in order to push shit around (or knock it over) for a living. With the wife, of course.

“We could call our business Gettin’ Dirty with Dave & Francie,” I said suggestively.

Francie cackled, “Call us if you want the earth moved.” Even at our age, we often revert back to being twelve-year-olds when no one else is around…or when we feel like embarrassing our daughters.

“You know what else we could do? We could go to random houses with our machine and tell them that for only $10,000, we’ll pass by their house and knock over someone else's.”

“That’s extortion.”

“I prefer to think of it as holding the house for ransom.” 

Either way, a big honkin’ bulldozer could be a badass way to make a living, especially for a guy who’s never been particularly badass himself (or remotely intimidating). But sitting in the cab of one of these bad boys, revving the engine with delirious grin spread across my face? Hell, I might simply be content to prowl around peaceful neighborhood streets in the dead of night, unseen behind the mechanical monster’s probing headlights as I repeatedly raised and lowered its massive blade. The predatory possibilities are endless. They were endless to Theodore Sturgeon, too, who wrote the story, Killdozer, back in 1944, which was later loosely adapted into a goofy ABC Movie of the Week.

There’s an entire generation of children raised in the ‘70s - including myself - whose introduction to horror and sci-fi was through television. We were old enough to be curious about the monsters lurking in theaters but mostly too young to do anything about it, so networks stepped in to oblige us by cranking out all kinds of creepy concoctions. The primary purveyor of these pictures was ABC, whose Movie of the Week series was a staple throughout the decade. Most movies were simply schedule filler and not particularly memorable, but some, like The Night Stalker and Trilogy of Terror, transcended their TV origins (and production values) to become classics. 

Those of us who grew up on such televised terrors are in our 50s and 60s now, so the likes of Killdozer, The Stranger Within and Bad Ronald still hold special places in our hearts. Almost without exception, they seem comparatively quaint today and never as scary as we remembered, but revisiting them stirs-up a lot of nostalgic warm fuzzies.

Actually, Killdozer wasn’t scary back then either. Even as a 10-year-old, tuning in one February Saturday night in 1974, I knew the very premise (to say nothing of the title) was inherently stupid, yet irresistible at the same time. That might make it sort-of the Sharknado of its day, save for one thing: The tone is completely serious.

In the movie, a meteor strikes a remote island and becomes buried over time. It’s later discovered by a construction crew led by Lloyd Kelly (Clint Walker). Not willing to let a glowing space rock stand in the way of progress, they decide to try and push it aside with a large bulldozer. However, the meteor’s power affects the machine, making it uncontrollable. 

The possessed bulldozer commences stalking the construction crew all over the island, hellbent on killing them all. Much silliness ensues, all unintentional, but there’s some great fun to be found in watching a team of guys trying to outwit their own construction equipment. And admittedly, there are a few moments when director Jerry London manages to make the dozer kind of menacing, especially during the night sequences. 

Considering the concept, the movie also features earnest performances, which had to be difficult to pull off with a straight face. Walker’s probably the most famous name here, though old school western fans will certainly recognize career bad guy Neville Brand. And isn’t that the late, great TV legend Robert Urich in an early role (and first to die)?

How to properly dispose of a Cybertruck.

As sentient, vicious vehicles go, Killdozer actually predates the likes of The Car, Crash!, Christine and Maximum Overdrive. While it’s not necessarily better than those films (okay, it’s way better than Maximum Overdrive), one can’t help but wonder if this quaint little TV flick had at least some influence (on Stephen King in particular, who wrote a lot about machines turning on their masters). Over the years, it’s also become something of a cult film, even inspiring a band name.

Unfortunately, after Francie and I finished our errands, I did a quick Google and learned that even a medium sized CAT bulldozer (which is evidently the Ferrari of construction equipment) runs well over $100,000. Really large ones, like the malevolent machine in Killdozer, could cost as much as a million bucks. So I guess if Francie and I are gonna start our earth-moving/extortion side hustle, it’ll be as hired hands using someone else’s stuff.

On the plus side, it turns out there is such a thing as bulldozer school. In fact, we could be qualified to sit in the cab of a 55 ton killing machine in just a couple of weeks. Yours truly even passed the pre-qualification test with an 82%. Consider yourselves warned.