Last year’s Jurassic World Rebirth was a totally fine, but not very memorable Jurassic Park sequel. That’s been most of what we’ve gotten from the dinosaur-filled franchise over the last decade or so. But if, like me, you crave something better, something more like the original books and film, then you should check out an ongoing YouTube series that is one of my favorite things on the internet.
YouTuber Ali Awada has been making animated Jurassic Park videos since 2023. And while some of his earlier attempts weren’t highly polished, with choppy animations and weird edits, they showed that the creator understood how to produce scary videos using the world of Jurassic Park. And Awada’s most recent Jurassic Park series is a massive improvement over that past work.
Muldoon’s Logs is an ongoing found-footage-like VHS horror series made up of 12- to 20-minute-long videos from the point of view of Jurassic Park game warden and khaki shorts lover Robert Muldoon. You know, the guy who gets eaten by a raptor in the first movie after saying, “Clever girl.” In Awada’s series, we get to see what Muldoon was up to before the movie, as he helped run the park and manage its dinos.
Each installment features Muldoon checking on various dinosaurs while dealing with a mystery involving rogue velociraptors that keep causing problems. Where these raptors come from, how they got into different parts of the park, and who is to blame are questions the series has been teasing for weeks now with each new upload. And I’m hooked.
Muldoon’s Logs aren’t the scariest YouTube videos around, but instead are more of a slow burn. You get a lot of time to just chill with Muldoon as he interacts with the dinos or investigates different scenarios. This builds the tension as you know something bad or scary is going to happen before the video ends. And when that happens, like a raptor appearing where it shouldn’t or a T-Rex chase, it’s exciting and tense.
Muldoon’s Logs are a great example of how Jurassic Park can be the perfect franchise for horror-adjacent projects and movies, something the franchise proper doesn’t do enough of. Dinosaurs stalking around is creepy stuff, and Awada taps into that, with the VHS aesthetic helping to hide some of the limitations while also making it all feel more real. I hope the upcoming horror game Jurassic Park Survival is as scary or scarier than Muldoon’s Logs.
And for Jurassic Park lore nerds, you’ll enjoy all the large and small references to the movies, games, and books, including characters from the Telltale Jurassic Park game being name-dropped and Awada skillfully explaining why the Dilophosaur is so different in the novel compared to the film. In fact, something I really appreciate about Muldoon’s Logs is how often the writing reminds me of the technical, science-heavy dialogue found in Michael Crichton’s original books.
If you’e a Jurassic Park fan and/or someone who enjoys VHS found-footage horror, Muldoon’s Logs are perfect for popping on at night in a dark room and getting lost in a creepy, tense atmosphere.
