Notes: Universal International. Produced by Fairway Productions (who also did The Blob). 85 minutes.
Bart Thompson: Ward Ramsey
Betty Piper: Kristina Hanson
Chuck: Paul Lukather
Neanderthal: Gregg Martell
Julio: Alan Roberts
Mike Hacker: Fred Engelberg
Dumpy: Wayne C. Tredway
O'Leary: James Logan
Chica: Luci Blain
Jasper: Jack Younger
Mousey: Howard Dayton

Produced: Jack H. Harris
Directed: Irvin S. Yeaworth, Jr.
Screenplay: Dan E. Weisburd and Jean Yeaworth
Special Effects: Tim Baar, Wah Chang, Gene Warren
Music: Ronald Stein

Summary: In an effort to enlarge the harbor of a Caribbean island, Bart Thompson and his American construction team (especially the rather heavyset man known as Dumpy) sets off underwater explosions which seem to open up a subterranean river. Betty rows along, nearly getting blown up, and then dives for her lost picnic basket. Bart follows, rescuing Betty when she faints underwater at the sight of a large frozen dinosaur head.

After some hostility between Bart and the local island manager, Mike Hacker, the construction team uses a crane to haul ashore two frozen carcasses, a tyrannosaur and a brontosaur, "perfectly preserved," which keep getting mentioned as "a million years old." Irish stereotype Mr. O'Leary is put in drunken charge of watching these from his hut during a rainstorm while Betty and Bart visit the one restaurant on the island. Hacker discovers a frozen Neanderthal which washed ashore, and stashes the body in the bushes, hoping to make money off American scientists.

At the restaurant, Julio, the young ward of Hacker and obnoxious pain-in-the-ass in his own right, unforgivably interrupts drinks: "Oh, these are my monsters I got for my cereal box tops. I thought I'd bring them over to show you. This one's the brontosaurus. He's a vegetarian. He wouldn't hurt you unless you got in his way and he stepped on you. But this one's the mean one. The tyrannosaurus. He's got a bigger brain and a bigger appetite. He eats meat, and he likes to eat brontosaurus, even better than people." Hacker finds Julio slacking off and smashes these toys underfoot. Meanwhile, lightning splinters and hits both dinosaurs (quel Frankenstein!). Their mouths smoke. O'Leary drinks and sees the revived Neanderthal. Eventually the reanimated tyrannosaur eats O'Leary.

The exploding hut brings the rest to where only tracks remain. The phones are knocked out by the storma and Bart realizes that they should get the islanders to a ruined fortress to avoid the "big hungry flesh-eating dinosaur." A couple islanders are crushed in a van (not the "crowded bus" mentioned on the video box which is "crushed like an eggshell!"). The Neanderthal at the window of a house scares away a woman, enters the house, and is puzzled by a ham radio, wax fruit, books, a flush toilet, and other items. He snatches an ax.

Julio meets the brontosaur, nervously saying, "Remember, you're the friendly vegetarian like it says on the box." He tells the bronto to run away when the tyrannosaur approaches. He then enter's Betty's house, meets the Neanderthal, and helps the two of them to food. Hacker intrudes on Julio's attempt to teach silverware use, and the Neanderthal throws a pie in Hacker's face. The two escape and end up riding the bronto. Betty sees this, runs after Julio, and is picked up by the tyrannosaur until the Neanderthal axes its foot and catches Betty when she drops. In some lair, the Neanderthal signals to Betty that she should cook his rabbit carcass on a stick. She says, "I hope you don't have anything else on your mind." When Julio throws rocks at the tyrannosaur, the Neanderthal rescues him and returns to the cave.

The T-rex fights the bronto and bites its neck, but heads after the human(oid)s in the cave. Bart and Dumpy try throwing Molotov cocktails, but these don't work. "Maybe if I could pop one right into his mouth. . . ." This works better, while the bronto sinks in quicksand. Hacker arrives and shoots the Neanderthal in the arm, causing a cave-in. The Neanderthal holds up a beam so that the others can get out, and he and Hacker are killed under rocks. Bart offers Julio a half-assed explanation that the Neanderthal didn't want to live in this strange time.

The islanders mosey to the fortress, but the oil-filled moat will allow only a few minutes of protection if the tyrannosaur attacks. So when it does, Bart runs to a derrick and battles the animal with the shovel mechanism. "Dumpy, if you've ever prayed, do it now." A good smack knocks the dinosaur off a cliff into the ocean. And we end with thoughts of waking up in the future--the 21st century--which Julio will do someday (without being frozen, unfortunately).

Commentary: The film was made in Scandinavia, but that's no excuse.

In addition to the torch-in-mouth syndrome again, most bizarre is Julio's speech: "Oh, these are my monsters I got for my cereal box tops. I thought I'd bring them over to show you. This one's the brontosaurus. He's a vegetarian. He wouldn't hurt you unless you got in his way and he stepped on you. But this one's the mean one. The tyrannosaurus. He's got a bigger brain and a bigger appetite. He eats meat, and he likes to eat brontosaurus, even better than people."

The last syntactical ambiguity (even better than eating people? even better than people like eating brontosaurus?) obscures the stranger assertion that humans are an option on dino menus. But the entire speech also seems to imply its own offensive evolutionary hierarchy: the bigger the brain (read intelligence, although this is bunk), the more meat-based the diet, and the more aggressive. I'll only buy the last two as connected.