The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
Cavemen is the generalised term given to early humanoids at a point prior to the establishment of civilisation. Anthropology will break these down into nomenclatures like Neanderthal, Australopithecus, Homo Sapiens and others. It is not necessary to concern ourselves with these here as the films discussed rarely make any distinction. (Cavemen equally refers to cavewomen, although the gender neutral Cave People sounds odd on the tongue).
There are assorted depictions of cavemen set during Prehistory. In many of these, we frequently see them anachronistically coexisting with dinosaurs despite the fact that 64 million years separate the two species. There were also several Lost World efforts showing cavemen still existing in forgotten pockets of prehistory amid the present-day.
The 1950s gave us the atomically revived dinosaur with The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953). Not long after, we began to get the revived caveman effort where they would variously be unfrozen and forced to bewilderingly confront a modern-day – for which see Prehistoric Revivals.
The 1960s gave us the first of the comic prehistoric works with tv’s The Flintstones (1960-6) and there have been various prehistoric and revived caveman comedies since then, both live-action and animated. The 1980s saw a move towards the depiction of much more anthropologically realistic prehistoric films beginning with Quest for Fire (1981).
A bizarre Italian film that recounts the Biblical story of Adam and Eve and then follows on from their banishment from Eden and into the wilderness where they encounter dinosaurs, cavemen and wild beasts
The prehistoric film seems a bit dated and hoary on screen these days. Albert Hughes solves the problem of revitalising the genre a series of jaw-droppingly kinetic action moves and stunning hyper-real landscapes
Ken Russell’s big studio-backed film about drug trips, the meaning of life and William Hurt reverting to a caveman is a glorious madcap and visually stunning work that reaches for the same cosmological grandeur that 2001: A Space Odyssey does
Second in the trilogy of Edgar Rice Burroughs adaptations starring Doug McClure. This opens with the fabulous invention of the drilling mole but the arrival at the earth’s core look cheap and tatty
Birdemic was a cult bad movie – incredibly, despite the better budget that must have come his way, James Nguyen has gone and made the same thing filled with laughably flat dialogue and the worst effects ever seen on screen
Witless and inane comedy in which nerdy high school student Daniel Roebuck is thrown back in time to the Stone Age where he romances cavegirl Cindy Ann Thompson
A comedy spoof of One Million Years B.C. and the whole sub-genre of caveman vs dinosaurs films This proves amiably goofy where Ringo Starr seems perfectly cast as the lead caveman
An oddly unconvincing adaptation of the first of Jean M Auel’s best-selling prehistoric books featuring Darryl Hannah as a more advanced Cro-Magnon cavewoman Ayla living among a Neanderthal tribe
The fourth and final of Hammer Films’ cycle of prehistoric adventure films, this far less interestingly throws out stop-motion animated dinosaurs and opts for relative anthropological realism
What gives the expectation of being a formulaic animated film about a prehistoric cave family instead comes with a fresh and naturalistic sense of humour that proves oddly appealing
The sequel to DreamWorks’ animated prehistoric film. For a very low expectation effort – the modern animated sequel – this emerges as far more colourful and entertaining than one expects
The very first film from stop-motion animator Willis O’Brien, the creator of King Kong. A rather slight piece about the comic shenanigans among a group of cave people but it was the first film to ever depict a dinosaur on screen.
A collaboration between B-budget hacks Fred Olen Ray and Jim Wynorski. Made not long after Jurassic Park, the two have simply made one of their usual softcore T&A films and slapped the word dinosaur on it
A low-budget effort but amiable effort about dinosaurs and a caveman that are revived on an island. The cheap effects, culminating in a battle between a dinosaur and a crane, have some imagination
Another of the ‘don’t __’- titled entries of the 1970s. This is a bizarre bad movie about teenage runaways in L.A.’s Griffith Park who fall prey to flesh-eating immortals
Claymation film from Aardman Animations that is in effect a prehistoric comedy like The Flintstones or The Croods mixed up with a sports film, but is Aardman’s slightest work so far
Z movie classic with Richard Kiel as a revived caveman facing hot rodding teenagers. Much bad movie hilarity and hilarious dialogue ensues, plus a rock’n’roll soundtrack
One of the more enjoyable films from Charles Band’s Empire Productions, a comic-book of a film that assembles an action team of various abilities on an adventure up against a mad scientist
An excruciatingly unfunny teen comedy with Brendan Fraser as a caveman who is unfrozen in the present-day. The film served to introduce Pauly Shore, one of the most annoying figures to ever appear on screen
The first in what later became a fad for replicating cartoon tv series as big-budget live-action films, this does an exacting live-action version of the Hanna-Barbera series
Sequel to the live-action The Flintstones film. Whether we asked for it or not, this offers up a Flintstones origin story where we see familiar elements of the series fall into place
A trashy European exploitation version of the Frankenstein story that involves Frankenstein reviving a cavemen, a perverted dwarf and plentiful nude bodies
Pixar have never been the same since they slipped into the easy familiarity of sequelitis. This is essentially a boy and his dog story but played out with a dinosaur and a caveboy, but also an alternate history tale
Film from Z-budget filmmaker Al Adamson. Most of this is reissued from a Filipino caveman film, along with a handful of filler scenes slung together from odds of Adamson’s other half-finished films
Excellent and underrated film about a caveman unthawed in the Arctic where attempts are made to help him adjust. This conducts the a creaky old story with modern scientific and anthropological realism
Former Pixar director Andrew Stanton, known for Finding Nemo, Wall-E and John Carter, makes a cross-historical work in the vein of Cloud Atlas that takes place between prehistory, the present and the future
Hallmark TV mini-series version of the Jules Verne novel that keeps faith to the book for the most part before heading off on some colourfully exotic adventures
A relative disappointment among the mostly excellent animated DC superhero films, this pits each member of the Justice League with a matching super-villain only who seemingly kills them off
Big screen revival of the children’s lost world tv series that is now a loud and excruciating Will Ferrell vehicle that reduces the original into lowbrow farce. A majorly unfunny bomb on every level
The first in a trilogy of prehistoric lost world adventures based on Edgar Rice Burroughs’ novels, all starring Doug McClure. Despite variable effects, this is a well-made adventure with a strong script
A team of explorers find a humid world at the Arctic where dinosaurs and cavemen still roam. The men in rubber suit effects are adequate, although the film itself is on the slow side
This feels like a remake of the Roger Corman post-holocaust cavemen cheapie Teenage Caveman. It cannot escape that at heart it is never more than a B movie about caveman fighting mutants
Based on an Arthur Conan Doyle novel and featuring stop-motion animated dinosaurs from King Kong creator Willis O’Brien, this was the quintessential lost world film
A TV mini-series adaptation of the Arthur Conan Doyle lost world story, this has been produced by the BBC as a glorious period adventure with CGI dinosaurs
Beautifully written film about an immortal. The result is an entirely captivating SF film whose whole effect emerges simply from people sitting in a living room talking
The Man from Earth built up a reasonable reputation with a simple concept – a 14,000 year old man tells his life story that comes with a killer of a twist. This sequel far less interestingly becomes a detective story about a group of students trying to find if their professor is the same character
The incomprehensibly manic antics of the Minions have a cuteness appeal that has overspilled the Despicable Me films and seemed like it is in danger of taking over pop culture in the last couple of years; here they get a film all to themselves with amiably lightweight results
Disney film about a group of teens who find that heart of a UFO that opens up a time warp at their high school
Sequel to the Ben Stiller hit offers more of the same with a bigger museum and more exhibits come to life but little else
The third entry in a franchise that seems to be stretching to find anything to do with its premise beyond the first film. Everyone involved seems to have only turned up to collect a paycheque and be going through the motions in a show that entirely coasts by solely on your familiarity with the characters
Popular family hit with Ben Stiller as a night watchman at New York’s Museum of Natural History who discovers that the exhibits come to life at night. More a cute idea than a full film, there is some fun to the characters and effects
A lost Edward D. Wood Jr film. Clearly made as a parody on the hit Raquel Welch-starring One Million Years B.C., this is adult work depicting the sex lives of cave people
Classic caveman vs dinosaurs prehistoric drama later to be remade as the more famous version with Raquel Welch. This plays as fairly creaky today but gains an undeniable vividness with the raw ferocity of its dinosaur scenes (played by optically enlarged lizards)
Cult stop-motion animator Ray Harryhausen made this classic caveman vs dinosaurs film in collaboration with Hammer Films. The work that brought Raquel Welch to prominence as an actress
A film that follows a group of cavepeople who set out on a journey to find a new land to only to be hunted by mysterious unknown, possibly supernatural threat
The third in the trilogy of Edgar Rice Burroughs adaptations with Doug McClure. This has much imagination despite the special effects often not being up to the task
Laughable prehistoric drama about cave women searching for mates – too cheap to afford stop-motion animated dinosaurs and filled with ridiculous dialogue howlers
A surprisingly good animated film about the relationship between a caveman and a dinosaur, all without a line of dialogue. From the director of the Hotel Transylvania films
A fascinating lost world/alien lizard people stop-motion animated film that has been in production for a record 56 years, eventually pieced together and released by Charles Band several years after its creator’s death
Beautifully shot directorial debut from Jean-Jacques Annaud that sets out to dispel all the cinematic cliches about cavemen and dinosaurs and offers up an anthropologically realistic prehistoric film
An animated film revival of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? This also makes an misguided attempt to build a shared universe among assorted Hanna-Barbera characters
The third of Ray Harryhausen’s Sinbad films, this came out the same year as Star Wars and Harryhauden’s stop-motion animated creatures look much more flat in comparison
One of a handful of prehistoric adventure films made by Hammer Studios. This eschews the stop-motion animated dinosaurs of their earlier One Million Years B.C. but does give the stage to Martine Beswick who injects a sizzling dose of sexuality and camps a silly plot up by playing to the hilt
Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead have become one of the most underrated indie genre voices. Here they make a film where Anthony Mackie discovers a drug that causes people to travel through time
Roland Emmerich leaves epic mass destruction behind to make a prehistoric film, but this is one that soon collapses into a remarkable anthropological silliness
Michael Crichton was hot as a result of Jurassic Park. Although mostly seen as an historical spectacle, this is an adaptation of his novel that attempts to retell the legend of Beowulf with Vikings against Neanderthals
The one and only solo outing from Lou Costello of Abbott and Costello fame made after the duo’s split-up and just before Lou’s death. The film is essentially a comedy remake of the previous year’s Attack of the 50 Foot Woman in which Lou’s newlywed wife abruptly becomes a giant
A revived caveman effort that is fairly terrible on all accounts. This has gained bad movie status because it features Joan Crawford as a scientist in her last theatrical role
Animated adaption of the comic-book about a Native American warrior stranded in a prehistoric lost world
Among the 1950s/60s spate of Jules Verne films, this was an adaptation of one of Vernr’s lesser-known works Hector Servadac/Off on a Comet. That said, all the but the notion of people swept up on a comet is thrown out and the rest played as a prehistoric lost world adventure
After the success of their earlier caveman vs stop-motion animated dinosaurs epic One Million Years B.C., Hammer made several other prehistoric films, including this effort that purportedly had a script by an uncredited J.G. Ballard
Likeable puppet animated film about a time-travelling boy and his monkey companion
Film spinoff from tv’s hit ultra-paranoid alien conspiracy drama. The film is caught in the unenviable position of trying to give fans what they want and reiterate the basics of the series for new audiences, while giving away no plot details in advance, and as a result ended up pleasing nobody
Not very funny comedy from Harold Ramis and Judd Apatow where Jack Black and Michael Cera are cavemen who stumble through many incidents from the Old Testament