Dinosaurus! (1960) Review

Dinosaurus! (1960) Review

Clips of several old dinosaur movies were used in a documentary program I watched as a kid, and I made it my mission when I was older to watch all of those movies, but many proved elusive to obtain. In the past few years, though, lots of obscure classics have been re-released to blu ray, and now, thanks to Kino Lorber Studio Classics, the last of the mysterious dinosaur movies of my youth is finally in my collection! Before this month, I had never seen Dinosaurus! because the DVD was long out of print, the VHS was rare, and it wasn’t even available online anywhere. I waited twenty years to finally see this thing, and it didn’t disappoint. 

Construction workers on a Caribbean island discover something unusual at the bottom of the sea: two frozen dinosaurs, a long-neck Brontosaurus and toothy Tyrannosaurus rex. They haul them up on the beach to thaw, and just like Frankenstein’s monster, are restored to life by bolts of lightning. There’s also a caveman resurrected, sought after by Mike Hacker (the villain) for profit, but the heroes of this picture want to get everyone on the island to safety by taking them up to a fortress and making a moat of fire. Hacker’s boy, Julio, is rooting for the Brontosaurus, which just wants to be left alone to eat bananas off the trees. Then Julio encounters the caveman, and the two become fast friends, even getting to take a ride on the Brontosaurus!

Dinosaurus! is a campy flick for its time and for all-time, but it’s among the most entertaining dinosaur films of the era. When the dinosaurs are hauled up the beach, it literally looks like a kid’s plastic toys being plowed through a sandbox. The effects are a bit sub-par, even for 1960, but Dinosaurus! carries a sense of purposeful fun. It’s extremely funny throughout, usually with intention (though often unintentionally because of how dated the effects are), and some of the best laughs come from the caveman. He’s confused, hungry, and even a little horny. 

I love the T.rex in this movie. It’s cartoony, but entertaining as hell, and has one of my favourite roaring sound effects ever used for the tyrant lizard king. The T. rex and Brontosaurus are a mix of puppets and stop motion, but the two techniques don’t really blend together very well. The stop motion is jerky and the models lack detail, and the puppets are pretty good, but a bit limited in motion, and many shots make it accidentally obvious how small-scale they are in reality. It’s the kind of effects display that severely lacks realism and consistency, but is still pleasing to watch. 

It’s set up early on that the T. rex would eat the Brontosaurus if given the chance, so the whole movie I was just waiting to see the two beasts clash, and thankfully, they actually do! It’s a great fight, and to my surprise, the T. rex kills the Brontosaurus! It’s the only bit of the movie with any blood. Aside from this one scene, Dinosaurus! isn’t gory or scary, making it suitable for all ages. Then it turns out the Brontosaurus isn’t dead, after all, but it sinks in a pit of quicksand shortly after. Poor guy didn’t stand a chance. 

For what it is, Dinosaurus! is pretty great. The characters aren’t overly annoying, the dinosaurs get plenty of great scenes, and it ramps up steadily in excitement (I mean, it has an exclamation mark right there in the title). While I wish I could have seen it for the first time as a kid, I think I probably appreciated it even more in some ways having had to wait so long.