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Released by: 88 Films
Released on: March 13th, 2017.
Director: Michele Massimo Tarantini
Cast: Michael Sopkiw, Suzane Carvalho, Milton Rodríguez
Year: 1985
The Movie:
Also knowns as Amazonas and Nudo e selvaggio (which would seem to translate to Nude And Savage, which is a pretty bad ass title for a movie like this), Michele Massimo Tarantini's goofy 1985 jungle adventure Massacre In Dinosaur Valley stars Michael Sopkiw as Kevin Hall. He's an archeologist who, while hanging out at a Brazilian hotel, meets a paleontologist named Professor Pedro Ibaí±ez (Leonid Bayer) and his foxy daughter Eva (Susane Carvall). It turns out that they, along with a jerk photographer and a gang of hot female fashion models, are chartering a plane to take them into Dinosaur Valley. Some are there to do scientific work, others for a photoshoot. It doesn't take a genius to figure out who is up to what. A cranky Vietnam veteran named John Heinz (Milton Morris) and his grumpy wife Betty (Marta Anderson) are also along for the ride.
But then the plane crashes! The old paleontologist dies in the crash but the foxy daughter does not. Most of the models are also toast. She and Kevin head into the jungle alongside the vet, who is clearly wanting to do thing his way - after all, he's a military man! Things head south quickly though when one guy gets his leg chewed up by a bunch of piranha. Around the same time they realize that they're not along in this jungle - there's a tribe of cannibals about and they're hungry! If that weren't enough, there are also some human traffickers around hoping to abduct anyone they figure they can make a sleazy buck off of.
Not the most thought provoking film ever made, Massacre In Dinosaur Valley is nevertheless top notch trash movie entertainment. Sopkiw makes his way through the movie like a poor man's Indiana Jones, getting into bar fights, saving the pretty ladies, taking on all the bad guys - he's the consummate tough guy and he's a blast in the part. You just know that lovely Eva, played by Susane Carvall (who also pops up in Women In Fury) is going to fall for him, and of course she does. As far as her acting goes, well, she's mostly asked to stand around and either look good or look scared - she does both of these things well. Leonid Bayeri is fun as the chubby old professor but he dies too early in the film to make too much of a difference, while Milton Morris is a kick as the saltiest and surliest survivalist you ever did see.
Fairly gory and completely devoid of dinosaurs, the movie features a few moderately grisly scenes of cannibalistic carnage and jungle based mayhem. It never reaches the heights of something as grisly as Cannibal Ferox or Cannibal Holocaust but it doesn't really take things in that direction. This is more of an over the top jungle adventure movie than a horror picture, but it works. The pacing is solid, the locations work quite well and there's enough nudity, violence and rampant stupidity on display here to keep B-movie trash film fiends entertained for an hour and a half.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Both the English and Italian versions of the movie are presented on a 50GB disc in AVC encoded 1080p high definition framed at 1.85.1 widescreen, touted as 2k restorations from the original negative. Image quality doesn't differ much, if at all, between the two versions, but that's not a complaint as the image here is quite strong. Colors are nicely reproduced throughout the duration of the film and black levels are fine. Skin tones look good, the image is free of any overzealous noise reduction. Skin tones look nice and natural and there are no problems with any compression artifacts or noise reduction. There's enough grain here to make this look like film, but very little in the way of actual print damage. No complaints here, this is a very good transfer.
Italian and English language audio options are provided in LPCM 2.0 Mono with subtitles provided in English only for the Italian track. Audio quality is also quite good - there are no discernable problems with any hiss or distortion and the levels are nicely balanced throughout playback. For older mono mixes the audio here sounds just fine.
The main extra on the disc is a twenty-one minute long featurette entitled Location, Location, Cannibalization. Here Calum Waddell discusses the locations used in shooting the film while providing some interesting thoughts on the enduring popularity of Cannibal movies and some of the cultural trappings that work their way into these entries in the most notorious subgenre of Italian horror cinema. It's genuinely interesting stuff.
The disc also includes eleven minutes of deleted scenes (none of which are super essential but all of which are worth checking out at least once for fans of the feature), the film's original theatrical trailer, menus and chapter selection. It's also worth noting that 88 Films has supplied some nice reversible cover art for this release.
The Final Word:
Massacre In Dinosaur Valley is pretty ridiculous stuff but it's definitely a fun watch. Sopkiw has a gruff charm about him and the movie offers up enough cannibal carnage and female flesh to appease exploitation junkies. 88's Blu-ray isn't super stacked with extras but the featurette is interesting and the presentation quality is pretty strong here. Definitely a nice upgrade over the previous domestic DVD release.
Click on the images below for full sized Blu-ray screen caps!
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