In Dinosaur Valley, a construction worker (Todd Michael Smith), using dynamite, blasts a giant hole in a mountain. Inspecting the hole he comes across two dinosaurs that are awakened from hibernation. The worker is attacked but manages to get out of the cave before he dies. The two dinosaurs, a stegosaurus and a T-Rex, are now on the loose.
Three miles away a small group of college students, Alan (Mark Polonia), Charlie, and Lynette (Maria Davis) are on an archeological dig. When they feel the effects of the explosion, Alan decides to check out what is going on. Leaving Lynette at camp, Alan and Charlie venture over to the quarry. They see the hole in the mountain but nothing else so they return to camp.
The next day Lynette finds fresh dinosaur footprints in the mud. Alan now believes that there are dinosaurs running around the woods. Alan surmises that the dinosaurs went into hibernation from inhaling rock gas. When the mountain exploded they began inhaling oxygen and came back to life.
When the gang returns to town Alan calls his mentor, Professor Tanner, to tell him about what they found. The Professor calls in a big game hunter (Todd Carpenter) to kill the dinosaurs so he can sell them on the black market. The hunter kidnaps Alan and Lynette. He takes them out to the woods to help him find the dinosaurs. Meanwhile the dinosaurs are rampaging toward town.
“Saurians” was allegedly released in 1994. The film has never had a DVD release. Word is the VHS release was only twenty copies. From my understanding the movie was supposed to be released in 1991 by Raedon but the company went under before the release date. It then sat on a shelf until Mark dusted it off, and with a little reediting, released it himself. It is an independent film that was directed, written, edited, produced and starred Mark Polonia. It seems to be the only movie that Mark did without his twin brother John, although John has a cameo in the film. It is hugely difficult to find. I actually found it on the Internet Archives but VHS copies are scarce.
There is not a lot known about the film but there are lots of rumors. Some believe that Mark actually made the movie much earlier because he looks so young in the film. Rumor has it that Ron Bonk did a VHS reissue. Supposedly it was also dubbed in Spanish and released in Madrid, Spain in 2022 at the Cutrecon Film Festival.
The movie is basically for fans of “so bad it’s good”. It doesn’t have much going for it, but what it does have is canned music, bad acting, slow pace, bad dinosaurs, horrible picture, abysmal special effects, and some really strange editing. The dinosaurs are puppets and plastic toys plus some fake feet. There’s some stop motion and some forced perspective. The film was shot without sound and dubbed later. If you’re a fan of dinosaurs, this movie just may cure you of that.
Maria Davis and Mark Polonia are married in real life.