The Natural History Museum is snuggled between the California Science Center and USC’s University Park Campus, but its walled-in structure, gated entrance and life-size dinosaur replicas out front make it look more like an evil doctor’s hideout than a museum.

So unless you’re on an elementary school field trip or attending archaeology workshops for 3- to 5-year-olds, the NHM isn’t on your radar. But this summer, the outdated museum capitalized on its penchant for the archaic with a movie program that patrons of all ages can enjoy called “B Movies and Bad Science.”

On select Sunday afternoons, NHM attendees watch an old creature film from the height of the Cold War and then listen as real-life scientists debunk the plot plausibility and walk them through the museum’s collection of “real-life counterparts.” Think “MythBusters” without the “MacGyver” and plus doctorate degrees in random “ologies.”

Since June, the series has brought in entomologists, malacologists, paleontologists and anthropologists to call out movies like Beginning of the End (giant grasshoppers take over the world), The Flying Serpent (Aztec God returns from the grave) and Godzilla vs. Mothra.

This Sunday’s movie, Reptilicus, however, fuels the third grade boy in all of us by having Dr. Luis Chiappe from the NHM’s own Dinosaur Institute discuss why a defrosted 90-foot reptile tail could not be regenerated into a “full grown beast and terrorize humankind.”

Although dreams of coming face-to-face with a humankind-terrorizing T-Rex will be proven unrealistic, watching the 1961 monster movie should give fossilized reptile enthusiasts something to tie them over until the NHM’s grand Dinosaur Hall completes its renovation next year. 2 p.m.



The Natural History Museum is located at 900 Exposition Blvd., Los Angeles. For more information, visit nhm.org.