Review of Massacre in Dinosaur Valley (1985) by Simon B — 11 Jun 2009

This movie's original title is 'Nudo e selvaggio' or 'The Naked and the Savage'. As is so often the case in the world of Italian cannibal exploitica, the title is the best thing about the movie. If you are so inclined, you can enjoy a couple of strapping, greased-up muscleboys wrestling in a bar; live cockfighting; piranha attacks; occasional cannibalism; a weird tribal ritual involving grass skirts and Halloween 'spooky-hands'; copious amounts of completely unnecessary female nudity; striptease; girl-on-girl action; and the ubiquitous 'rape' scenes. The weird drunken Thai hooker lady-boy in the Frank-N-Furter costume who spends most of the movie swigging from a bottle and laughing hysterically at nothing at all is particularly noteworthy.

Unfortunately, the whole thing isn't quite so bad as to give it that laugh-out loud quality of vintage Hershell Gordon Lewis. Nor does it have the irony or sheer balls of early John Waters. The whole thing tries terribly hard to shock, but ultimately succeeds in providing nothing more than soft-core titillation for only the most undiscerning of viewers.