This is a comparison between the UK Blu-ray released by 88 Films and the Austrian Blu-ray released by XT Video.

Professor Ibañez along with his daugther Eva wants to get to the legendary Dinosaur Valley which apparently is full of prehistoric bones. On their flight, they are accompanied by adventurer and archeologist Kevin who also is interested in dinosaur bones, fotographer José and his models Belinda and Monica as well as the Vietnam veteran John and his daugther Betty who is bummed out by her husband's impotence. During the flight, there is some turbulence and the plane has to make a forced landing in the Amazon Basin. The pilot and Professor Ibañez do not survice the crash while the rest of the group has to get through the jungle which is full of piranhas, bloodthirsty cannibals, hungry corcodiles and a group of ruthless diamaond collectors. Naturally, the group is decimated one by one.

It is actually pretty genious, how "Massacre in Dinosaur Valley" puts several exploitation-movie-elements together in order to entertain the audience over the course of the entire runtime. Since director Michele Massimo Tarantini had put out a few Italian sexy comedy flicks, it is no wonder that there are a few good-looking actresses in this movie who - for several different reasons - have to take off their clothes. Even the strongest voyeuristic undertones are interesting: After getting through a river, John looks at the two models - only to be confronted by his wife, saying that due to his impotence he would not be able to do anything about the situation anyway. Main actor Michael Sopkiw will keep you entertained as a poor man's Indiana Jones who finds a way out of any harmful situation. The confrontation with the cannibals is only one part of the movie and - thankfully enough - goes by without any animal being killed on camera. Instead, the Aquaras cannibals have a bizarre cult surrounding the dinosaur bones during which they try to sacrifice the two - barely dressed - girls.

88 Films had started a second crowdfunding on indiegogo.com (after they successfully remastered Zombie Holocaust and Burial Ground). Fans were asked to fund some money for restoring another Italian genre movie. There were different movies to chose from, depending on how much money they would end up with. For "Absurd" they wanted £10,000, for the additional titles "Massacre in Dinosaur Valley", "Aenigma" and "Beyond the Darkness" another £10,000 each. On June 13th, 2016, the funding ended with a sum of £83,930 - a great success. However, was "Massacre in Dinosaur Valley" actually worth £10,000? Then they announced a second goal for "Massacre in Dinosaur Valley":

"Goal 2: We raise £20,000 and and the gut-munching Massacre in Dinosaur Valley gets remastered in 2K resolution from the original 35mm negative, uncut and uncensored."

2K, uncut, uncensored - sounded pretty good. However, if you hold the actual disc in your hands, you might be bummed out a bit. The Blu-ray includes two versions: An English and an Italian cut, with the English version being the main cut. In comparison to other releases you at first will see that the movie has an annoying yellowness which is neither to be found on the US DVD, nor the XT Blu-ray. Additionally, the transfer is not much better than the one on the Austrian Blu-ray. On the bbfc homepage we get to know that 88 Films had handed in the movie for a rating. 13 seconds of the cockfight scene had to be cut out. These restrictions had to be fulfilled, even though this fight is just shown for a few individual seconds and not really intense. If you compare the disc to the XT version, there are even more cuts. It is absolutely unforgivable, that all sequences during the sex scene of Kevin and Monica miss out on a few seconds. When the group walks through the jungle, nine more seconds were taken out. Apparently, this scene was not included in the master used by 88 Films. Still, it is sad to see that they did not take the time to compare their transfer with other versions, especially, since they were using the fans' money.
The Italian version has an Italian audio track with forced (!) English subtitles. Besides the Italian opening and closing credits, the main difference is that this version additionally misses out on the lesbian scene with Myara and Belinda.
Coming back to what the campaign promised: £10,000 for a newly restored version, which (due to the inappropriate color screen) is worse than already existing versions, had to be cut due to restrictions from the bbfc and also misses out on sequences that were not included in the used master - that is an unfair deal.

In conclusion, we can only advise you against buying the UK Blu-ray. If you are interested in the movie, stick to the Austrian XT Video release. That one actually includes a long version with Deleted scenes added back into the flick (some of them, unfortunately, without sound).

Thanks to Beyond Media, who provided us with the XT Blu-ray.

[00:09:56][00:07:08]

A short missing cut to the roosters.

Uncut: 1 sec.


[00:09:58][00:07:09]

Another cut to the roosters.

Uncut: 1 sec.


[00:10:00][00:07:10]

Again, we see the roosters.

Uncut: 1 sec.


[00:10:02][00:07:11]

Another cut to the roosters.

Uncut: 1 sec.


[00:10:04][00:07:12]

The roosters continue to fight.

Uncut: 2 sec.


[00:10:13][00:07:19]

The camera pans down to the cockfight.

Uncut: 3 sec.


[00:11:15][00:07:57]

The roosters fight on and then get separated.

Uncut: 4 sec.


[00:11:48][00:08:26]

The cockfight continues.

Uncut: 2 sec.


[00:18:39][00:14:51]

Kevin kisses the model a little longer. In the next shot, the two of them can be seen earlier.

Uncut: 4 sec.


[00:18:49][00:14:57]

Again, Kevin is shown longer. In the following shot, both of them are shown a little earlier.

Uncut: 3 sec.


[00:18:58][00:15:04]

Kevin kisses the model a little longer. In the next shot, we can see him pulling down her panties a little earlier.

Uncut: 2 sec.


[00:19:07][00:15:11]

Kevin pulls the girls panties off. In the next shot, we see them kissing earlier.

Uncut: 3 sec.


[00:19:19][00:15:20]

Kevin kisses the model a little longer.

Uncut: 3 sec.


[00:19:33][00:15:31]

The two of them are shown earlier, before Kevin kisses the model.

Uncut: 3 sec.


[00:35:25][00:27:01]

The group walks through the jungle. In the next scene we see the group earlier.

Uncut: 9 sec.