Michael Sopkiw plays Kevin Hall, a paleontologist who hitches a ride on a plane travelling to Dinosaur Valley, a fossil hunter's paradise deep in the cannibal-infested Amazon jungle. But when the plane crashes en route, he and the other survivors (a photographer and his model, a Vietnam veteran and his wife, and a scientist's daughter) must attempt to reach civilisation on foot, without losing too many body parts on the way.
Although the Italian cannibal craze had pretty much run its course by the mid 80s, a handful of directors tried in vain to scrape a little more meat off an already well-picked carcass, and delivered several offerings that did little to reignite interest in the genre.
Ruggero Deodato, of Cannibal Holocaust fame, directed the fairly enjoyable Cut and Run, an adventure movie with a little gut munching to spice up events, and Mario Gariazzo presented Amazonia, an unexceptional tale (actually about headhunters) that still managed to successfully capture some of that savage vibe that we cannibal fans know and love.
Michele Massimo Tarantini, meanwhile, gave us Massacre in Dinosaur Valley, a trashy (ie. it has plenty of hot nekkid women in it) B-movie style affair that totally misses the mark. With a fraction of the gore that fans have come to expect from the genre (the only memorable moment being a fun piranha attack), particularly dreadful acting, and a group of unlikeable characters you actually look forward to seeing being eaten alive, I found Tarantini's movie to be one of the weakest Italian cannibal films I have seen.
Some viewers seem to have enjoyed this one's general shoddiness, awarding it 'so-bad, it's good' status, but I don't think it manages to pull off that particular trick. In fact, part of me suspects that Massacre in Dinosaur Valley was intentionally made to be bad. Which doesn't make it good. Just bad. Which I guess, would make it a success. Except that I didn't enjoy it that much.
Ah, stuff it..... 4/10 for the quality T&A.
