Dinosaur Valley Girls (1996) by Donald F. Glut

Director: Donald F. Glut

Year: 1996

Country: USA

Alternate Titles: N/A

Genre: Dinosaurs

Plot:

Trying to prepare for a movie, a high-end movie star is constantly tormented by visions of an exotic cavegirl and other dinosaur-like creatures chasing after him which starts to disrupt his preparations. As the experience soon takes him into a prehistoric environment with a group of cavewomen battling a rogue group of former tribesmen and vicious dinosaur creatures, he has to use his movie-making skills to stop the dinosaurs and return to his present time.

Review:

Overall, this was a generally decent enough if somewhat problematic genre effort. Among the better elements here is the silly and outright goofy tone with a generally simplistic setup. The main storyline is about him being taunted and tormented by the visions of the cave girl and other dinosaurs to the point of disrupting his career to the point of looking into the cause of it happening which is what springs the time-travel back to the prehistoric age that the rest of the movie follows through. As this allows him to get caught up in the struggle between the female tribe and the males who are both battling the ferocious creatures in the area, this is all fun enough and manages to include enough about the tribe’s history together that makes for a solid enough main storyline.

While it works nicely enough, this has the idea of equating his bumbling inability to understand their motivations and gestures as comedy which is somewhat hit-or-miss. Some of the gags are genuinely enjoyable yet others rely far more on the kind of sophomoric sight gags and fart jokes that make for a somewhat generally scattershot approach to comedy. The overuse of sound effects is another big issue as that causes this to be somewhat overbearing in how the approach is utilized especially with the straightforward drama that goes on in the rest of the film involving how the tribe acclimates to his presence and attempting to utilize his sayings into their society which doesn’t need that kind of material in the film.

When it comes to the dinosaurs in here, it’s also a bit hit-or-miss but luckily errs on the side of hit more than the comedy. The stop-motion techniques for the dinosaurs are generally solid, feeling a bit more accurate and respectable to the real-life creatures even if they do come off far more obvious in their construction as being stuff models. They look good when standing around in the environment but when they’re asked to move around it’s a bit more awkward with the lack of fluid movement that really sells this kind of concept, and with the less said about the live lizards being used here the effects are somewhat enjoyable. Still, even with all this, the sense of charm as well as fine nudity throughout here give this one a really solid if still problematic time.

Overview: ***/5

A rather fun time even with some issues, it’s got enough to be a watchable if generally unimportant effort that has some solid enough aspects. Give it a shot if this kind of genre fare is enjoyable or intriguing overall while most others turned off by these factors should heed caution with it due to its issues.