Giant Dipper

  • Located: Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, Santa Cruz, California, USA
  • Built: 5/17/1924
  • Type: Wooden
  • Currently Operating

Giant Dipepr's first drop after the lift hill, its daytime, a flatride called Typhoon is in front of the coaster

A look at Giant Dipper during the day, I find this first hill the best way to check that the coaster is in fact the one in the movie I'm checking!

Giant Dipper is a fun one, not only has it been featured in a several movies but it also inspired me to create this section of the site!

Featuring a half mile of track, this nearly 100 year old coaster has featured in at least two movies! Both of them horror! Talk about final girl material.

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The Lost Boys

To my knowlege the first time this coaster was featured in a movie was in 1987 in the Black Comedy/Horror film "The Lost Boys"

Aerial view of Giant Dipper from the opening shot of The Lost Boys, its night time, the track is lit with string lights. There are also other flat rides lit up along the rest of the boardwalk

This movie follows two brothers who have just moved into their Granpa's house in the Santa Cruz area with their recently divorced mother. Inspired by Peter Pan the movie takes a look at a darker reason the Lost Boys never age as older brother Michael falls in with Vampires! Younger brother Sam meanwhile enlists the help of two self proclaimed vampire hunters to get his brother out before its too late.

The role of Giant Dipper in the movie is very inconsiquential as the characters never even go near the thing. What it does do is create an awesome establishing shot and provide some awesome looks at the coaster from 40 years ago!

A car on a lovers lookout at night, in the background you can see the backside of Giant Dipper. Its track is lit by string lights.

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Killer Klowns from Outer Space

A year later Giant Dipper shows up again in yet another horror flick!

The Santa Cruz boardwalk, partially obscured by a mountain. Giant Dipper is on the left and in the middle is a brightly lit circus tent.

Killer Klowns from Outer Space is a cult classic horror film from 1988 which follows a group of young adults as they try to get the townspeople to take them seriously about an alien invasion. Unfortunetly for them the aliens happen to look and act like clowns. These Klowns are much more deadly though, and the group must try and save their friends before its too late.

This is truly a blink and you miss it moment, with Giant Dipper only being in this esablishing shot before the scene changes to what I assume is a normal movie set. Nevertheless its still cool to see!

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Us

Our next view of Giant Dipper on the Silver Screen comes to us 32 years later in 2019! Featured in the Jordan Peele film Us.

Adilade standing on a beach holding a red candied apple, in the background, out of focus, Giant Dipper towers over, its track is lit by string lights.

Us follows our main character Adilade and her family taking a trip to Santa Cruz, somewhere Adilade hasn't been to since she was a child. When the family is attacked by dopplegangers Adilade learns about her past she tried so hard to surpress.

Once again taking a backseat, and seems much more of an afterthought than used for anything esablishing or even a cool ariel view of it, Giant Dipper appears in the background as our Main Character Adilade sees the horrifying Hall of Mirrors on the beach.

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Do you know any movies the Giant Dipper was in? Have any cool information about the coaster in general? Send me an email, I'll check it out!