Directed by Jim O'Connolly
Written by William Bast
IMDB

I went into this movie knowing but one thing about it: cowboys fight dinosaurs. This movie did deliver on that promise, but only to a degree.
It begins with a Mexican horse show, which involves a (stop motion) horse taking a dive into a flaming pool. TJ, the woman who owns the show, has a blast from the past as her former boyfriend and conman, Tuck, comes back into her life. He wants to help make a deal that will sell her biggest attraction, the horse that dives.
TJ is reluctant at first, but eventually agrees because she has an even bigger attraction, so to speak. She has an extremely tiny horse. When Tuck sees this, dollar signs light up in his eyes.
A blind gypsy woman finds out that they have the horse, which comes from the titular cursed valley. She warns them to let it go, and when they won't, her son/friend lets it loose. Tuck follows them.
Some of TJ's workers lie to her and tell her Tuck stole the horse, and they band together and follow him. When they run into each other Tuck has captured the horse. TJ tells him to let it go, which he does, allowing the horse to run into Gwangi.
After explaining that he didn't steal the horse, but was rather trying to get it back for TJ, Tuck and the gang enter the Valley of Gwangi. They very quickly realize that they shouldn't be there when they see dinosaurs. They shoot it out with the dinos to no avail. Eventually they escape the valley, being chased by a T-Rex. As they exit the valley, the T-Rex is knocked out by some falling rocks.
They capture the T-Rex, making him the newest attraction of TJ's show. Again the gypsy guy sabotages the show, letting the T-Rex loose and causing mass panic.
I enjoyed this movie. It's not exactly what I had hoped for, but it had a pretty intriguing plot that was helped along by Ray Harryhausen's excellent stop-motion dinosaurs. There were a couple of nice giant monster fights between dinos and one between the T-Rex and an elephant.
The opening moved along a little slowly, but possibly because I wanted to see cowboys and dinosaurs fighting pretty badly. The rocky relationship of TJ and Tuck is pretty interesting, especially the turn it takes at the end. Definitely worth a watch for the old school special effects, if nothing else.

7/10