Believe it or not, Back to the Future was not the only film released in 1985 that dealt with a high school senior taking a trip through time and ending up in the distant past.  There was also Cavegirl, which tells the story of Rex (Daniel Roebuck), a nerdy science student who, during a field trip, finds himself transported back to prehistoric times.  It’s there that he meets the title character, the cheerful and friendly Eba (Cindy Ann Thompson).  Eba likes Rex and Rex like Eba.  The only problem is that Eba can’t speak a word of English and Rex can’t get a moment along with her without being interrupted by various cavemen.

Perhaps not surprisingly, this film was distributed by Crown International Pictures.

One thing that I always find interesting about the various high school films that were released by Crown International is that the schools always look so ugly.  That’s certainly the case in Cavegirl.  It’s not just that the school’s lay-out is boring.  (Apparently, nobody put much effort into designing high schools in the 70s and 80s.)  It’s just that the school itself looks dirty, as if all of the custodians are on strike.  When, at the beginning of the film, you see Rex walking through the school, you just know that the entire building probably reeks of stale air, rotting food, and decaying rodents.  (In fact, it looks like it might be the same school from The Pom Pom Girls.)  No wonder Rex doesn’t seem to mind being sent into the past!

And speaking of Rex, he’s played by Daniel Roebuck.  Roebuck actually gives a pretty good performance in this film, bringing a lot of conviction to some incredibly silly lines.  But the best thing about seeing Daniel Roebuck in this film is know that, decades later, he would play the ill-fated Leslie Arzt on Lost.  Arzt only appeared in a handful of episodes but every time he did appear, he was whining about something and petulantly demanding to be included in whatever the main characters were doing.  When they finally did allow Arzt to tag along with them, he mishandled some dynamite and blew up.  (Leading to the classic line: “You’ve got some Arzt on you…”)  Arzt may have only been created so that the creators could blow him up but Roebuck gave such a memorably fussy performance in the role that, even after exploding, he retained a following among the show’s many fans.  In Cavegirl, Roebuck gives a similarly fussy performance and, as a result, the entire film feels like it could be called “Leslie Arzt: The Early Years.”

As for Cavegirl itself, it’s definitely a crude film, in both execution and much of the content.  There’s about as much humor based on bodily fuctions as you expect to see in a film like this and there were a few such scenes that I choose to look away from until they were over with.  But, at the same time, it’s ultimately a surprisingly likable film.  That’s largely due to Daniel Roebuck and Cindy Thompson.  They both have a very likable chemistry and Thompson gives such an enthusiastic performance that you can forgive a lot of the film’s weaker moments.

Is Cavegirl as good as Back to the Future?

Well, no.

But, as far as low-budget 80s teen comedies are concerned, it works.