#527 – A Nymphoid Barbarian in Dinosaur Hell (1990)

A Nymphoid Barbarian in Dinosaur Hell (1990)

Film review #527

Director: Brett Piper

SYNOPSIS: In a post-apocalyptic Earth, a young woman has to survive in a world infested with dinosaurs, mutants, and barbarians.

THOUGHTS/ANALYSIS: A Nymphoid Barbarian in Dinosaur Hell is a 1990 post-apocalyptic sci-fi film. The film opens up the same way as nearly every post-apocalyptic film does: with a montage of the world being essentially destroyed by nuclear war. What is left is a world filled with dinosaurs, mutants, lizard people…just a mish-mash of any and all typical things you’d find in other films. There’s not much rhyme or reason to the setting. The plot is…basically non-existent: there’s hardly any dialogue, any motivation, or any direction. With post-apocalyptic films you can definitely make the lack of dialogue or story work: in a world where society has collapsed, sometimes the only goal is to survive, and films like Mad Max 2, which also uses minimal dialogue and focuses on action, works extremely well. Here, that is not the case, as the action is sub-par and without any spectacle. The film just consists of some wandering about and scrappy fights, with a few stop-motion monsters as well. There’s no sense of character, world or development to maintain interest, and it certainly doesn’t live up to the hyped up title, which is probably the only reason anyone would be drawn to this film.

But we shouldn’t perhaps be so disparaging about the film because it was made by the company Troma; who are known for making low-budget sci-fi horror films that rely on comedy and satire to make fun of the genre. Even by Troma’s standards though, this is bad. This film just doesn’t have any amount of self-awareness or satire that would make you think it is poking fun at the genre: it’s just dull, and the lack of any substance means you really have no idea what to take from it. The title promises much, but delivers very little: there’s not really any dinosaurs, the barbarian isn’t a nymphoid (in fact nymphoid isn’t a word), and you’re not missing out on anything if you skip this film.