Dinosaurs are blasted up from the ocean off of a Caribbean island. Frozen solid, they are brought to shore and revived by lightning. They proceed to run amok, along with a Caveman who was frozen along with them. The islanders are soon cut off from outside help and must survive the night.
Tropes Include:
- Artistic License – Geography: Freezing cold currents in the Caribbean.
- All Cavemen Were Neanderthals: The Caveman is pretty clearly a Neanderthal.
- Bait the Dog: When the T. rex starts causing trouble, Hacker insists he's going to go look for Julio, who ran away and whom he's terribly worried about. Betty uses this to claim that "nobody's all bad." However, he doesn't care about what happens to Julio; he just wants to find the now missing Caveman he's trying to keep a secret from everyone.
- Big Bad Wannabe: Hacker. He's a corrupt island manager who acts like the isle is his personal kingdom and is all-around terrible person who causes even more trouble over the course of the film trying to capture the Caveman whom he intends to profit from. Unfortunately for him, the T. rex is a far greater threat whose presence routinely hinders his own plans and who ultimately gets him killed.
- Big Fun: Dumpy. Yes, that is the character's name.
- Break the Cutie: Julio goes through the emotional ringer throughout this movie. He's routinely mistreated by his legal guardian, Hacker, and watches both the Caveman and Brontosaurus he befriended die. By the end of the film, he's too depressed and sullen to eat and says he doesn't want to grow anymore.
- Contemporary Caveman: The Caveman, one of the earliest in movies. Easily the funniest parts of the movie are him dealing with things like wax fruit and mirrors.
- Damsel in Distress: Betty.
- The Ditz: Jasper.Hacker: "...I didn't know you were an anthropologist."Jasper: "Uh, not a very good one. I mean, I haven't been to church in years."
- Despair Event Horizon: Julio crosses it after the Caveman does his Heroic Sacrifice and the apparent death of the Brontosaurus at the teeth of the Rex.
- Didn't Think This Through: Hacker tries to break a wine bottle to use as an impromptu weapon and ends up slashing his own hand open.
- Dumb Dinos: The T. rex is a marauding monster while the Brontosaurus is more friendly but dim.
- The End... Or Is It?: The T. rex is knocked back into the cold water at the end of the movie and the movie implies that it's still not dead.
- Fish out of Temporal Water: The Caveman does not understand modern day life, which makes him one of the most endearing characters in the whole movie.
- Grievous Bottley Harm: Subverted, the bottle breaks in Hacker's hand when he tries to make it deadlier, cutting him badly.
- Human Popsicle: The Caveman and the Dinosaurs.
- Heroic Sacrifice: The Caveman chooses to save his friends by holding up the collapsing mine. He doesn't make it out.
- Hollywood Darkness: All over the place, both with blue lighting in the studio bits and tinted shots for outdoors. A particularly bad example of day-for-night occurs when Bart chases after Julio; although it appears to be filmed at high noon in sunny St. Croix, there's only a slight grey filter
◊ to indicate it's taking place in the evening — and in pouring rain, no less.Kevin Murphy: Damn nighttime storm, with its dryness and harsh shadows! - Jerkass: Hacker.
- Morality Chain: Julio to the Caveman.
- Misplaced Wildlife: The Dinosaurs and Caveman are not from that part of the world nor were they contemporaneous.
- Mr. Exposition: The boy, Julio, knows everything about dinosaurs and if he doesn't know something, he asks a question about it, causing others to exposit.
- Prehistoric Monster: The T. rex is a killing machine. Racking an (off screen) body count of at least a dozen.
- Quicksand Sucks: up the poor Brontosaurus.
- Rip Van Winkle: The Dinosaurs, but especially the Caveman. This trope is also discussed with the Caveman.
- Say My Name: A LOT.
- Stop Motion: The Dinosaurs, when not done by puppetry.
- Terrifying Tyrannosaur: 'The T. rex starts killing the moment it wakes up and doesn't slow down for a second after that.
- Title Drop: "Sound the Alarm! Dinosaurus!"
- Too Dumb to Live: Immediately after she nearly pilots her boat into a delayed-action charge, Betty gets huffy at everyone (despite them trying to warn her away) and decides to... dive down into the water, where the last charge just went off almost a minute ago.note
