Saurians (1994) (Blu-ray Review)
DIRECTED BY: Mark Polonia
STARRING: Mark Polonia, Maria Davis, Matthew Satterly
RATED: UR/Region: O/1:33/1080P/NUMBER OF DISCS 1
AVAILABLE FROM Visual Vengeance
There are dinosaur movies with massive budgets, groundbreaking visual effects, and carefully crafted scripts. And then there’s Saurians (1994), directed by Mark Polonia, a movie that feels like somebody watched Jurassic Park and responded with, “Okay, but what if we made our own version using determination, stop-motion dinosaurs, and whatever happened to be lying around the house?”
And honestly? That DIY ambition is kind of admirable.
Released by Visual Vengeance, Saurians is exactly the sort of gloriously homemade regional creature feature that could only emerge from the magical shot-on-video (or in this case 8mm) wasteland of the 1990s. The movie itself is… rough. Very rough. Acting ranges from charmingly awkward to “did they just grab somebody’s cousin off the porch five minutes before filming?” The pacing occasionally wanders into another dimension entirely, and the dialogue has that unmistakable backyard-filmmaking quality where everyone sounds like they just read the script for the first time during rehearsal.
But then the dinosaurs show up.
And suddenly you realize something genuinely impressive is happening here.
The stop-motion work in Saurians is shockingly ambitious for a microbudget 8mm movie made in 1994. Sure, it’s not exactly Ray Harryhausen-level artistry, but considering the resources involved, the effects are honestly kind of remarkable. You can feel the amount of effort poured into animating these creatures frame by painstaking frame. There’s a sincerity and passion behind the effects that completely carries the movie whenever the human characters stop talking long enough for another dinosaur attack to happen.
Which, to be fair, should have happened even more often.
The creatures themselves have a scrappy charm modern CGI-heavy low-budget monster movies often lack. They feel handmade because they literally are handmade. Every jerky movement and miniature setpiece has actual effort behind it instead of just somebody clicking through stock digital assets on a laptop at 3 AM. The movie may stumble in nearly every traditional filmmaking category, but when those stop-motion dinosaurs start stomping around, you can’t help but respect the hustle.
And honestly, that’s what makes movies like this memorable.
Once again, Visual Vengeance absolutely crushes it with the presentation. The movie itself looks about as good as it probably ever could given the source materials, preserving all the grainy VHS-era weirdness while cleaning things up enough to properly appreciate the effects work. You’re not buying Saurians expecting pristine reference-quality visuals anyway. You’re buying it because you enjoy weird regional monster movies made by people who clearly loved what they were doing.
And as always, the packaging is absurdly good.
Seriously, Visual Vengeance puts more effort into the artwork and physical presentation of these releases than major studios put into movies costing hundreds of millions of dollars. The slipcover art looks fantastic, the overall release feels genuinely collectible, and the label continues to treat forgotten shot-on-video oddities like sacred pieces of cult cinema history.
Which, honestly, they kind of are.
Even better, the release includes another Mark Polonia dinosaur movie, Dinosaur Chronicles (2004), because apparently one low-budget Polonia dinosaur adventure simply wasn’t enough. Including an entire bonus feature just adds even more value for fans of regional horror and no-budget creature features. It’s basically a double feature of pure homemade dinosaur chaos.
And there’s something deeply lovable about that.
Saurians is not a polished movie. It’s messy, amateurish, awkwardly acted, and held together largely by sheer determination and stop-motion dinosaurs. But it’s also creative, ambitious, sincere, and impossible to fake. In an era where so much low-budget horror feels algorithmically assembled, movies like this stand out simply because they have actual personality.
Plus, any movie willing to attempt stop-motion dinosaur effects on what was probably the budget equivalent of a fast-food family meal deserves at least a little respect.
Extras
- New director-approved SD master from original tape elements
- Commentary with director Mark Polonia, moderated by the Visual Vengeance crew
- The Making of Saurians
- Saurians Locations Visit
- Actor Todd Carpenter Interview
- Kevin Lindenmuth Interview
- Saurians Stop Motion Outtakes
- Saurians Super 8 Raw Footage
- Alternate, never released Rae Don Home Video version of Saurians
- Commentary track for Rae Don version with director Mark Polonia, and the Visual Vengeance crew
- Bonus Feature Film: The Dinosaur Chronicles (2004)
- Commentary track for The Dinosaur Chronicles with director Mark Polonia and the Visual Vengeance crew
- The Making of The Dinosaur Chronicles
- Saurians Visual Vengeance Trailer
- The Dinosaur Chronicles Visual Vengeance Trailer
- Saurians 2 Trailer
- Visual Vengeance trailers
- ‘Stick Your Own’ VHS sticker set
- Reversible sleeve featuring original Saurians VHS art
- Folded mini-poster with alternate vintage promotional art
- Optional English subtitles
- Limited Edition O-Card – FIRST PRESSING ONLY WHILE SUPPLIES LAST
- Limited Edition rare, original piece of Super-8 film from the movie – FIRST PRESSING ONLY WHILE SUPPLIES LAST
