12 Days Of Dino Dicember #11: The Beast Of Hollow Mountain (1956)

I promised it time ago, i referenced it very recently when talking about Cowboys VS Dinosaurs, so this is a… relatively long time coming, but i did really want to cover what it’s arguably the original and most distinctive piece of the “weird west” subgenre, which includes the sub-subgenre of “dinosaur westerns”, with The Beast Of Hollow Mountain.

Thankfully this one shouldn’t be that hard to find, even for collectors, as it was included in collections and – luckily for me – received a HD restoration on DVD, one i didn’t even had to import, as it’s available in Italy thanks to Sinister Films ( even includes 1953’s full lenght feature The Neanderthal Man as an extra), though under its old and hilarious localized title, “La Valle Dei Disperati”, which translates to “Valley Of The Hopeless”. XD

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12 Days Of Dino Dicember #8: Cowboys Vs Dinosaurs (2015)

It seems i have misplaced my UK DVD, so enjoy this US poster.

“Hinted” at this one in last year’s Dino Dicember, so here it is, the versus match of the millennia, to decide who’s better between gun junkies cattle herders and extinct-not extinct predators.

One i didn’t even had to search for online, as i already owned on DVD as “Jurassic Hunters”, bought alongside a pack of other UK DVD dinosaur movies imports years ago.

What luck!

And another one that people rating shlock on IMDB are being a bit too mean towards just to rake in the likes by fake pretending Jurassic Park quality and bitching how Cowboys VS Dinosaurs didn’t rock their socks off, that or people who genuinely haven’t seen REALLY bad b-movies.

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Dino Dicember #16: The Valley Of Gwangi (1969)

While this one slipped into obscurity (and the fact Warner Brothers made few copies means this is one hard to find even as an UK import, and it’s oddly pricey, same as for 50’s stinker From Hell It Came), there’s an interesting production history to tell with The Valley Of Gwangi, so gather round the fire, grill some ‘saurus and listen close.

The film was originally conceived by special effect legend Willis O’ Brien (yes “the King Kong guy”), and was basically a mash-up of Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World, with the added “Kong flavor” of having the creature captured, brought into civilization only to escape, and was known as “ Valley Of The Mists”, where cowboys discovered and captured an Allosaurus – dubbed “Gwangi” – in the Grand Canyon, brought it to a Wild West show, and having it fight with lions (so much for the Wild West theme), until it breaks free, runs amok and is driven off a cliff by a truck.

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