One Million Babes BC (2024) (Blu-ray Review)
DIRECTED BY: Mark Polonia
STARRING: Jamie Morgan, Jeff Kirkendall, Marie DeLorenzo
RATED: UR/Region: O/1:78/1080P/NUMBER OF DISCS 1 (BDr)
AVAILABLE FROM Leomark Studios
With a title like One Million Babes BC, you’d think we were in for some prehistoric sleaze, ridiculous comedy, and enough cavewoman shenanigans to make Fred Flintstone blush. Instead, we get a low-budget caveman adventure that feels like it was dug up from the bottom of a bargain bin and immediately should’ve been buried again.
The plot involves Ogg, the leader of a wildly primitive tribe, deciding that Nila must be sacrificed to appease the sky gods. Because apparently, the ancient world’s solution to every problem was to find someone to kill instead of, I don’t know, trying literally anything else. Bad weather? Sacrifice somebody. Bad harvest? Sacrifice somebody. Movie not entertaining anyone? Sacrifice the screenplay.
Mark Polonia has never exactly been the guy you call when you need a prehistoric epic with a Hollywood budget, and I’m not expecting one. Low-budget movies can be a lot of fun when they embrace their limitations and bring enough creativity or stupidity to make up the difference. But there’s a difference between charmingly cheap and feeling like somebody found a box of costumes, a few props, and a vague memory of what a comedy is supposed to be.
And that title! One Million Babes BC sounds like it should be delivering nonstop prehistoric nonsense, but the biggest thing getting sacrificed here is the audience’s patience. The movie has a goofy premise, but a goofy premise can only carry you so far before you start wondering if the sky gods might be willing to sacrifice a few minutes off the runtime.
I can appreciate the DIY spirit behind a movie like this, and there’s always something admirable about filmmakers who keep making movies without waiting for Hollywood to hand them a giant bag of money. But enthusiasm and a funny title aren’t substitutes for jokes that land, a story that holds your attention, or a reason to care about what’s happening on screen.
Ultimately, One Million Babes BC is the kind of movie that sounds considerably more entertaining when you’re reading the title than when you’re actually watching it. It’s prehistoric, it’s cheap, and it occasionally feels like cinema itself has been dragged back to the Stone Age. Sadly, the comedy doesn’t seem to have evolved much since then, either.
Maybe Ogg should’ve sacrificed the movie to the sky gods. At least then there would’ve been a chance of divine intervention.
The title One Million Babes BC makes a pretty big promise, and unfortunately, the movie delivers about as well as a caveman trying to invent indoor plumbing.
