Primal [Import]

Primal (Josh Reed, 2009)

Capitol Theatre's recent Twelve Hours of Terror moviefest [note: review written in October 2010] was mostly a return to some old favorites, but they did pop up with a few I'd never seen before. One, in fact, I'd never even heard of: Primal, a 2009 Australian eco-horror flick without any of the usual eco-horror trappings that ended up being the night's most pleasant surprise.

Plot: a PhD student, Dace (Wil Traval in his feature debut; he's done TV time in as a regular in All Saints and Rescue Special Ops), and five of his friends head off into the middle of the Australian outback to find some cave paintings that, we're told, no human has laid eyes on in one hundred twenty years. (That should have served as a warning, no?) Among the pals are Kris (Rebekah Foord, also in her feature debut and also from Rescue Special Ops), who seems to be Dace's assistant; Mel (Krew Boylan... yes, in her feature debut) and her boyfriend, the supremely jealous Chad (Lindsay Farris, and yes, you've heard that refrain before); Warren (All My Friends Are Leaving Brisbane's Damien Freeleagus), the class clown of the bunch; and Anja (Gone's Zoe Tuckwell-Smith) whose grandfather was the last person to see the paintings. All goes well until they get to the mountain where the paintings are and discover they have to traverse a narrow tunnel to get to the other side; Anja is severely claustrophobic, so much so that she blacks out and ends up having to drive the car around to the other side of the mountain. When she gets there, as they're setting up camp, one of the party is attacked by what turns out to be some sort of mutant rabbit, Mel goes swimming in the wild and emerges from the water covered with leeches (don't people ever learn?), all that sort of thing. Nothing big, but when it all adds up... in any case, Mel develops an odd fever that everyone blames on the leeches. And during all this, Kris, who took pictures of the paintings and has been studying them, comes to the conclusion that they aren't telling a story, they're acting as a warning...

I did not know until I pulled up Primal's IMDB page that four of these six actors had never done big-screen work before, and even after reporting it, I'm not entirely sure I believe it; they're all very strong actors, and their characters are written well enough (the screenplay was co-written by Reed and constant co-author Nigel Christensen, and while they've done shorts and TV, once again you know what I'm going to say) to give these actors a whole lot to work with. The infighting in the group is just as absorbing as the outer threat, and considering this is one of those movies where the outer threat doesn't show up until halfway into the movie, I can't stress how important a thing that is. In fact, I was pretty much at the point, by halfway through the flick, of wondering whether this was really going to be a monster movie at all. And then it goes way, way over the top almost instantly, and you're on a thrill ride of survival horror that really works. But Josh Reed is not done with you, folks. This movie takes over the top as a baseline for the next time it ramps up. But let's face it, if you're willing to suspend disbelief enough to handle the first bit, the second shouldn't be that much of a problem.

Now, you may be thinking through all this that what I'm not saying, or saying between the lines, is that the movie isn't all that original, and you'd be right, but to that I say, who cares? So many movies like this have been released that have been so flawed in some way or another that seeing someone take the basic formula and craft it into a top-notch example of the form is, in my eyes at least, enough of a raison d'etre for Primal to exist. But if you want more than that, think about what I said at the beginning. This is an eco-horror flick, and it's painfully obvious that this, like any other monster movie filmed in the Australian outback (and far too many in America), is going to be an eco-horror flick. But there is a complete, and very refreshing, absence of the normal eco-horror tropes. We hear nothing about awful humans despoiling the land. (There is one very, very brief scene towards the beginning that, if you were so inclined, you could interpret with that message, but it is wordless.) There are no awful multinationals crowding into the forest ready to cut down every tree in sight. Our intrepid campers do not showily use a lot of electricity from generators. Blah blah blah. We are not, in short, given a reason to hate these people; they're just in the wrong place at the wrong time. You want original in a horror movie? As long as you don't look at anything produced before, say, Halloween, it doesn't get much more original than that. *** 

I knew it couldn't last. I'd watched TWO horror movies in a row that I actually liked...and then along came this little stinker.

If you can suspend ALL logic AND don't have opposable thumbs, then this is the movie for you. It seems some friends decide to go view some cave drawings, and it's downhill from there. They cuss a lot along the way, and you've got your basic components for "a crew gets eaten movie": the hard-nose alpha male, a couple (with a guy you just want to slap until your arms get tired), the comic single male, the crier, and the claustrophic one. The pretty blonde, who can't wait to get naked or talk dirty, goes for a midnight swim--which is ALWAYS a bad idea, becomes infected (by something), loses her teeth, and starts to eat raw things. They notice the "bugs" are devouring the tires on their car, yet all the guy in charge can say is "she just needs some rest."

Another reviewer says this played well because you could ask yourself what YOU would do if you were in that situation. Well, I'm not all that smart, but I believe I would have left.

"Primal" is AWFUL. They followed their paper-thin plot until the end where the screen writer must have said, "I give up; I'm outta' ideas. Let's just end this sucker." And they did. But don't worry; I won't give away the ending. You can punish yourself and watch the movie.

Unrated and TOTALLY unbelievably BAD.

Primal was fast moving and very brutal.
I enjoyed it and found it to be quite entertaining.
The characters were sexy and the story somewhat original but full of plot holes.The gore was abundant and pretty well done.
Don't go in the water because in about an hour or so you turn into a snarling cannibal with teeth like the teeth in the original Fright Night..There was one male character that was the biggest wimp and I wanted to slap him and say be a man dude..
It's a race for time to see who will turn into one of these Primal beasts and will the others be able to contain them and stay alive.
The ending is great and made me laugh as well..Keep the captions on for that part.
When I give a 4 star rating that means I Liked it,as the Amazon ratings state,1=Hated it / 2=Don't like it / 3=it was OK / 4=I liked it / and 5=I loved it ....it's not like a 9 out of a 10..