‘Dinosaur Valley Girls’ Blu-ray Review
Stars: Jeff Rector, William Marshall, Harrison Ray, Denise Ames, Karen Black, Griffin Drew, Elizabeth Landau, Carrie Vanston | Written and Directed by Donald F. Glut
With its catchy title and plentiful doses of both effects as well as T&A, Dinosaur Valley Girls became a staple of both video rental stores and late-night cable programming. Which makes it all the more puzzling that it has only now arrived on Blu-ray.
Tony Markham (Jeff Rector; Surge of Power: Where There’s Smoke, The Red Tide Massacre) is an action hero whose career is on the decline in part due to his chain smoking which makes it hard for him to get through his more physical scenes. While touring a museum run by Dr. Benjamin Michaels (William Marshall; Blacula, Twilight’s Last Gleaming) he finds an amulet that sends him back in time where he encounters dinosaurs and hostile cavemen led by Beeg-Mak (Harrison Ray; Rapid Assault, Ghostbusters) who steal his medallion before being rescued by Hea-Thor (Denise Ames; Danger Zone III: Steel Horse War, Road to Flin Flon), the leader of a tribe of horny cavewomen, the dinosaur valley girls of the title.
Dinosaur Valley Girls was written and directed by Donald F. Glut (Tales of Frankenstein, Countess Dracula’s Orgy of Blood) who is probably best known as the author of the novelization of The Empire Strikes Back and reference works like The Dracula Book and The Frankenstein Legend as well as comic books ranging from Captain America to Vampirella. He was obviously having fun telling this tale of time travel, dinosaurs and topless cave babes who serve as proof that even when dinosaurs ruled the Earth, women were getting boob jobs.
And while the girls are as attractive as I remembered and the dinosaurs look better than I recall, the film overall wasn’t as funny as I remembered, I guess endless fart jokes aren’t as funny to me now as they were almost thirty years ago. I still got a good laugh from the jokes about Tony trying to understand the cave people who speak their own language and vice versa.
There’s even a music video style segment for the song Jurassic Punk which helps stretch the film’s runtime and put more bare breasts on the screen. And if topless cave women and reasonably good stop-motion dinosaurs are enough to overcome the weak jokes, overall lack of a plot and bland performances, the female cast are there to look pretty and take their shirts off, which they do well, but Rector is a long way from having the comic chops he displayed in Bad President, even the usually reliable William Marshall and Karen Black (House of 1,000 Corpses, Auntie Lee’s Meat Pies) come off as bland., you’ll love Dinosaur Valley Girls. I’d still recommend a couple of beers and/or a couple of bowls before pressing play just to be sure. If not you might find your patience wearing thin before finding out if Tony can retrieve the amulet and get back to the present before he runs out of smokes.
Visual Vengeance have done a great job restoring the print which looks much sharper than the edited version available on YouTube, I think it’s the “PG-13” version included on this disc. The two commentary tracks with Don Glut and prolific B movie scribe C. Courtney Joyner were my favourites, you can see the full list of extras below.
Special Features:
- REMASTERED director-supervised SD master from original tape elements
- New 2023 Commentary with director Don Glut and C. Courtney Joyner
- Archival Commentary with director Don Glut and C. Courtney Joyner
- Dinosaur Valley Guy: Interview with director Don Glut (2023)
- Don Glut: The Collection – A look inside Don’s legendary dinosaur home museum (2023)
- The Making of Dinosaur Valley Girls
- Dinosaur Valley Girls – Alternate ‘PG-13’ rated cut
- Deleted and Alternate Scenes
- Actress Auditions Reel
- Dinosaur Tracks – Music Video Reel
- Jurassic Punk – Music and Lyrics
- Dinosaur Valley Girls – Music and Lyrics
- Storyboards
- Production Image Galleries
- Mu Wang in Mu-Seum
- Mu Wang in Danse Prehistoric
- Original Promotional Trailer
- Visual Vengeance Trailer
- Limited Edition Slipcase by Rick Melton – FIRST PRESSING ONLY
- Limited Edition Dinosaur Valley Girls logo sticker – FIRST PRESSING ONLY
- Reversible Sleeve Featuring Original home video art
- 2-sided insert
- Folded mini-poster
- ‘Stick Your Own’ VHS Sticker Set
- Optional English subtitles
*** 3/5
Dinosaur Valley Girls is available to stream free with ads on Fawsome, and you can order Blu-rays from MVD or check Visual Vengeance’s Facebook page for more details.
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