Jurassic Women (1994)
Hi all, Nate here again. Trawling the seedy depths of Youtube the other day turned up this forgotten gem and I just knew I had to tell you about it (not that you care...). This is, essentially, a Lost Civilization Movie, in which modern day (ish) people discover a lost tribe of humans in some exotic location and romance and adventure does surely follow. The hook in Jurassic Women should be in the title, right? Surely our heroes discover a lost band of cavebabes from/in the era of dinosaurs? Well, no, sorry. Then why "Jurassic" in the title, you ask? Timing, I answer! Recall that Jurassic Park was released just one year before production began on our stinker and the general public was still buzzing about dinosaurs and geological designations and all that jazz. You can hardly blame the living-in-mom's-basement bottom-feeders that made this movie for giving it a timely and sensational title, one that would sure lure a few unsuspecting (drunk) purchases/rentals from ill-lit video stores across the greater LA basin. That's The Asylum's entire business model, after all.
Anyway, our two heroes are astronauts in the not-too-distant future who have ventured into deep space in a mix of stock footage Apollo rockets and three-dollar CGI satellite clips, before suddenly finding themselves stranded on a mysterious, uncharted planet. You wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that this planet looks almost exactly, surely coincidentally, like a state park in San Bernardino County just off Interstate 5, amiright? But that's ok, those multi-use day passes for the park are much cheaper than renting a studio and green-screening in something truly alien looking.
You can even see a road back there.
Our two astronauts are, predictably, polar opposites of each other in personality and motivation. The older Captain is brash and arrogant and will surely cause no end to drama, and the younger, handsomer Doctor is kind and gentile and determined to make the most of their new situation. And that situation is that they are lost here on this planet with no chance of rescue or recovery. Well, until the sequel, of course.
Captain (L) and Doctor (R).
That sucks because they are quickly attacked by some shambling, zero-intelligence cavedudes in loincloths who grunt and hop like chimpanzees. As we learn later, these stupid males can’t even catch a rat and are so lazy that all they do is sit around in caves and pick lice off each other. These cavedudes, however, seem to be experts in kick boxing/karate (!) and are able to capture our humans easily. I know right, just roll with it, that sort of fighting style is surely evolutionary.
Led away.
Our space guys are soon rescued by a band of pretty white girls in fur bikinis who are also martial arts experts, and the cavedudes scamper off to their cave. The girls take them back to their encampment, which is little more than some branches leaned up against a rock and a couple of those canvas tarps you can buy at Home Depot strung up between some tree trunks. We are meant to believe that these 20-odd women actually live here, in a place with zero agriculture, zero food prep areas, zero sanitation, zero fresh water, zero tool manufacturing areas, zero defenses, zero anything. Just 20 actresses and a couple of cameramen/soundguys in a small clearing ten feet from the parking lot.
They have nail salons, though.
Their outfits and look need some further explanation. All of the girls wear nearly identical brown pleather/felt bikini tops and high-cut skirts, though we never see any indications of any sort of animals that might provide skins or sewing material. The girls are clearly wearing modern bras under their Jurassic tops, as we frequently see exposed lighter-color straps and underwires during action scenes when the girls are jumping around, which kind of ruins the look they were going for. On the plus side, they cast actresses for their cup size and not their ability to memorize lines, so at least it's easy on my eyes to watch these scenes. Their hairstyles are all contemporary early nineties West Coast, with a lot of curling irons and cans of hairspray on set.
They could all use a suntan.
Anyway, they take the humans in and explain to them that they speak English and know Muy Thai kickboxing because many years ago another human visited their planet and taught the chicks how to speak and sew fur bikinis before disappearing. This mysterious stranger didn't teach the cavedudes anything worthwhile, however, and eventually the two genders split over differences in fashion and diet and are now in active conflict with each other. And, no, we never learn the identity of this other visitor, even though I was waiting all movie for some sort of dramatic reveal, and it seems to be just a lazy script excuse for everyone speaking English.
Talking it over.
So the cavedudes kidnap one of the chicks and the girls have to raid the caves to get her back. This is made more difficult by the extra stress of trying to keep the horny Captain from violating the Prime Directive with his penis at every turn. It seems that he wants to bring civilization (his penis) and organizational structure (his penis) to these backwards tribeswomen (and their vaginas), as it's his duty as an educated white guy (with a penis) to impart his knowledge and wisdom to them (best relayed sans underwear). To their credit the girls are not really interested in any interspecies lovin' from him and rebuff his advances at every turn, often by smacking him in the head with their feet. After enough of this, the Captain sulks off into the woods to pout and drink moonshine (totes).
Just can’t catch a break.
He's also annoyed that the Doctor seems to be able to score with the ladies where he failed. Being the Nice Guy With Good Teeth, the Doctor is able to build a meaningful relationship with one particular buxom brunette and about the second act we see him help her experience sex for the first time. Don't worry, there's zero nudity, and the scene is about as sexy as a late-night Brazilian butt lift infomercial, and it does go on for about two minutes too long, but it does the job. It's stated that none of the girls here have any idea at all about sex, even though they also say that until recently they and the cavedudes all lived together in communal peace and harmony. What exactly where they doing in that cave then? Knitting skirts? How did their species/society procreate? How did their species/society survive this long if no one knows what a penis is for until the Doctor shows them? Makes no sense at all.
Hey, lips up here, buddy.
So the final confrontation is at hand, as the girls assemble to storm the cavedudes to recover their stolen comrade. Lines are drawn, weak kicks are thrown, punches are whiffed, underpaid actors flop in the dirt and curse their agents, and in the end the cavedudes are defeated. The Captain shows up for a moment just to cause trouble and get killed, and the Doctor saves his special ladyfriend and all is well. Instead of killing off the cavedudes, they decide to work together to learn more productive skills than kicking heads and grunting. The assumption is that in the future this society will develop and flourish into an empire with indoor plumbing and Pottery Barn outlet stores, if only they could stop fighting each other and learn to love (awww….).
They’ll make pretty babies.
So, does this movie add anything to the long established Lost Civilization movie canon? Anything original or unique that would set this one apart from the others? Meh, no. Sure, the budget was tiny, but they still could have tried to do something different than expected. It would have been cool if that mysterious earlier visitor turned out to be one of the girls in hiding, or even one of the cavedudes, or maybe even some wise old sage living in the woods. Or, hell, maybe it was just a myth, or maybe it was an earlier version of them in a time loop, something other than the most boring plot contrivance possible. They could have also twisted our expectations around and had the cavedudes be the smart ones and the girls be the violent savages. Or make both your astronauts gay, keep the same basic plot, and offend Kentucky a lot. There were a lot of ways this movie could have been better but no one really seemed to want to try. But if you like seeing attractive young women punching two-day-contract actors in the face for 90 minutes in the most PG-13 way possible, then this will be your cup of tea.
Plus gratuitous leg shots!
And in closing I'd like to introduce you to Jurassic Women's location manager Saintclaire Muckenfuss, my new favorite name ever.
She will be mine (wait, is that a she?).
The end.
Written in September 2014 by Nathan Decker.
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