A Nymphoid Barbarian in Dinosaur Hell

I read so many terrible reviews of Brett Piper's Nymphoid Barbarian in Dinosaur Hell. That i was convinced that this movie would be total crap.

On the contrary it is quite a good fantasy film. It wasn't always funny, but the intro Troma added was great, and the claymation creatures were really fun. I'd recommend this to both Troma fans, and films of mid eighties fantasy films like Gor.

The trailer and opening voice-over (which I suspect was tacked-on by Troma after the film's completion) of "A Nymphoid Barbarian in Dinosaur Hell" try to sell this film as a campy comedy, but it's actually a rather serious futuristic / prehistoric adventure. The story and dialogue are minimal; the film is slow and often boring, but the stop-motion animation effects for the various monsters, although dated, still have a nostalgic charm (I'd take them over the clumsy CGI of contemporary B-movies any day of the week), and Linda Corwin is very sexy as the not-so-nymphoid barbarian - she has the lean, muscular physique of a track athlete (perhaps she was one), and she can fight too: in the movie's best scene, she chokes a mutant to death. Shortly after that, there is a fight between a deformed "good guy" and the main villain which is surprisingly long and exhausting. My total grade for this film is 4 stars + 2 extra stars for Linda Corwin = 6 out of 10.

For Troma, this movie is tame. There really isn't any sex in the movie, the main star doesn't have breasts the size of casaba melons (in fact, they used stunt breasts in the scene towards the end because she didn't want to advertise her "shortcomings"), and the violence is minimal at best. The title of the movie is false advertising, at worst -- the lead character isn't much of a barbarian, she isn't much of a nymphoid, and the "Dinosaurs" aren't really so much dinosaurs as much as they are warped creatures. If you have to rent this movie for a bad movie night, rent it on DVD just so you can hear the director slamming his own movie.

I got this when i went on a splatter movie buying binge in a double-pack that cost just over £1, and i still felt robbed!. When i saw it was by Troma my hopes went up a bit, for i had recently watched an episode of "Shock movie massacre" on FTN which was about troma and said they specialised in making gory half-porn trash, but this, well, there was hardly any gore at all, except for when a lizard-man got a hole shot through him with a shotgun, despite the 'nymphoid' title there was no sexual content, aside from the bad guys clumsily falling onto the main character in what i can only assume was supposed to be attempted rape (more like they couldn't see where they where going with those masks on). The 'dinosaurs' don't look like any kind of dinosaur that really existed, but i think they where actually quite well-done, considering this was 1991, when CGI was fantastically expensive. There was even some scenes where the people and monsters where on-screen at the same time..not bad!. In all, this is a bad movie that you should avoid buying, but if you can see it at a friend's house for free, then do so..just don't be afraid to use the fast forward button, there is little dialog so you wont miss "the story"

If you want to experience a fantasy world of mythical beasts and far-off lands there are several choices. Firstly you can dream it. Secondly you can read it. or thirdly you can see a movie about it, where all the imagination work is done for you with visual effects and camera work. So why on earth are there movies made which still require us to use imagination to make the images seem real, or even watchable??

I have no problem with the "B" or even "C" movie genre. Some old and very respectable movies are made using plasticine model monsters, and superimposed close-ups of real insects... not a crime, nor a problem. But in this film, even those tried and tested, basic techniques are done badly. Although, hang on, was that a cameo by the "Asteroid-millenium falcon eating-monster" from "The Empire Strikes Back"?? No, surely not!

I sometimes wonder how and why films like this ever get made. I mean, someone has to have an idea at some point, and the "story" grows from there, right? I couldn't even piece a story together out of this, the final product. So how on earth did anyone first answer the question "So, what's this film going to be about?" Initially titled "The Dark Castle" I believe... then had a name change to entice an entirely different audience. The added female voice-over at the start belies this attempt at trickery... in fact, I'm not sure that one couldn't take this film and it's packaging to the advertising standards commission, and hold the company liable for every copy sold under these false pretences.

I rated this film "2", and justify the rating thus... one point for creative use of the poem "Jabberwocky". And one point for all the laughs I got from everything in this film! And I wasn't laughing at the funny bits I assure you! So rather than try to explain what this film is... how about a little about what it isn't. It's not a parody or a spoof, this limp lettuce of a production is somebody's actual attempt to make a movie. It's not a horror... believe me, "comedy of effort" would be a better genre! And it most certainly isn't any kind of soft-core porn either... don't let that name-change fool you! All in all, shockingly bad and pointless stuff. Not for horror, fantasy, sci-fi, B-movie, c-movie, or even any-movie fans at all.

Ever.