FANTASTIC DINOSAURS
OF THE MOVIES
Goodtimes Home Video
75 Minutes. 1991. Color and B&W.

Starring Michael Rennie, Doug McClure, Raymond Burr, Caroline Munro, Ray Harryhausen, Peter Cushing and Raquel Welch.

Giant monster films have captivated movie audiences for as long as the moving picture has existed. Audiences' thirst for the fantastic and horrific drove the film industry to deliver bigger and bigger monsters. The subject matter of a film would determine the type of monster or monsters in them. Films with a magical theme would contain dragons, demons and mythical giant creatures. Films dealing with time travel or places frozen in time from 65 million years ago were often filled to the brim with dinosaurs. Other films sometimes deliver everything in between. Regardless of the plot, special effects or running time, giant monster films have fans of all ages and are a source of interesting visuals, excitement, and sometimes, laughter.

Fantastic Dinosaurs of the Movies is a nice overall collection of trailers. The compilation only runs 75 minutes, but is still enough to please classic SciFi trailer collectors and enthusiasts. Trailers for films containing assorted dinosaurs, giant bugs and Godzilla are among the featured previews. Stop-motion animation, suitimation, Dynamation and live lizards with fake fins attached to their heads make up the majority of the special effects seen in these films.

The film quality varies from trailer to trailer. This is to be expected due to the source and age of different prints. In addition, the aspect ratios are dependent on their source. Although some of the trailers are presented in widescreen, they are non-anamorphic. Some of the trailers are cut off at the beginning and/or end and are filled with scratches, dust or splices; although these traits would be the subject of a harsh DVD critique, all is overlooked because the charm of a trailer is partially defined by the fact that its image has been slightly marred by being previewed by a movie-going audience. The mono sound quality is as good as the source it came from, and is on-par with the video quality.

Being that this disc is a series of trailers, there would be little or no reason to include extras. More often than not, some of the most barebones DVDs include at least the theatrical trailer. A trailer for a compilation of trailers would be redundant.

Although it is not the most comprehensive set of trailers, Fantastic Dinosaurs of the Movies is recommended to dinosaur film viewers, science fiction fans and monster movie collectors across the board.

Here's a rundown of the compilation:

3 minute overview of dinosaurs; Harryhausen mini-doc; Journey to the Beginning of Time; The Lost World (60); King Dinosaur; The Giant Behemoth; The Spider; The Giant Gila Monster; The Loch Ness Horror; The Land that Time Forgot; Jack the Giant Killer; It Came from Beneath the Sea; Them; Valley of the Dragons; Godzilla, King of the Monsters; The Giant Claw; Tarantula; 20 Million Miles to Earth; Godzilla Vs. The Thing; Journey to the Center of the Earth; The Crater Lake Monster; Seventh Voyage of Sinbad; Rodan; The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms; Reptilicus; The Land Unknown; Jason and the Argonauts; Ghidrah, The Three Headed Monster; At the Earth's Core; The Valley of Gwangi; Gorgo; King Kong; Son of Kong; King Kong Vs. Godzilla; One Million Years BC; When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth