Dinosaur Valley Girls (1996)

This goofy movie is an attempt to spoof those semi popular cavemen movies from the 60s and 70s, or at least that is what I’m hoping they were trying to do.  We are introduced to an action movie star named Tony Markham.  We know he is washed up because he can’t do his karate that well anymore and likes to smoke.  He also keeps having these dreams about this beautiful blonde woman.  After a bit more time spent in the present showing us how annoyed he is with his life Tony ends up at a museum.  Here he finds a magical talisman that grants his wish and transports him back a million years to the time of dinosaurs (don’t ask okay…).  Here Tony meets up with his dream girl, saves everyone from a T-Rex, and reunites the tribes of women and men. 

This is one of those movies that I’m really torn on.  See I understand the kinds of movies that they were trying to spoof.  And the movie does have some funny moments.  But it doesn’t take long for the jokes to get old.  There is a long stretch of Dinosaur Valley Girls that is nothing more than a series of fart sounds, 3 Stooges like bonking on various heads, and boobs popping out of costumes complete with a “boing” sound.  If this were a 30-minute short then it probably would be kind of funny.  But when the stretch it out to feature length the movie gets slow and repetitive.  And again while I found some of it to be funny, I was bored more often than I was laughing.

The cast isn’t very good.  I mean unless you take into account the sheer number of topless women that were clearly cast for their “assets” rather than their thespian skills.  But then I think that is the point, and that the acting is supposed to be bad.  You have both the women and men “aping” their lines in some sort of caveman language.  But even before that when the movie is in modern times the acting isn’t that great.  This really bugged me since this was also the last movie that William Marshall (Blacula, Abby) appeared in before he died.  Though little more than a cameo it is the acting highlight of  the movie.  Fans of such things might also want to keep their eyes open for a Forrest Ackerman cameo as well.  But basically the acting is about as cheesy as the story, which good god is it silly. 

Technically this is a very cheaply made movie.  But again I think this is the point.  The special effects are cheesy looking and fall back to some stop motion animation and lizard crawling around on miniature sets.  But if you are trying to make a bad caveman flick from the 60s then this is exactly how you’d do it.  So I can’t really complain here at all.  I do have a bit of a problem with how grainy and poor the picture quality gets at times.  I’m not sure if this was shot on some early version of digital equipment or if their film was just that bad. 

Dinosaur Valley Girls really isn’t that great of a movie.  But then again it is an homage or parody of those really terrible flicks that many of us grew up watching.  So if you have fun with those then you might have fun with this one.  If you are interested in checking the movie out you can get it either at www.Amazon.com or you can pick it up directly from their site at www.FrontlineFilms.com. 

2 out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer

© Copyright 2010 John Shatzer