Primal

I was quite entertained with this little horror flick and it doesn't disappoint in the gore department - it is unabashed and unflinching, and far more vivid than any of the usual fair. It rivals the Oz horrors such as Wolf Creek.

The tale is about six young people researching ancient cave paintings in the outback of Australia. A mysterious illness creeps upon one of the young women, stranding the entire party as they fight for survival against the nightmarish force.

Not bad special effects for a low budget film and it keeps up a steady pace of excitement. It's an entertaining 90 minutes despite the last quarter. The ending...well... is full of cheesy, over the top, blatant, symbolism.

I first saw this a decade ago on a dvd which I own. Revisited it recently.

I enjoyed this film as it is a fast paced horror with lots of gore, creepy moments n some truly good effects.

I found it to be better than Cabin Fever.

A group of friends travel to the Australian outback where one of em wants to study ancient symbols placed outside a mysterious cave. They come across n kill a mutated rabbit with pointed teeth.

At nite one of the girl goes skinny dipping into a pond and afterwards she starts mutating with pointed sharp teeth, enormous strength and hunger for flesh.

This movie is watchable but it has the typical character in horror movies that angers you more than the protagonist. If I had to kill a monster or Chad then Chad has got to go and when you watch this I am sure you are likely to feel the same. But overall, this movie is decent enough to sit through without getting bored and turning it off. It has many clichés that you would expect from this type of film, stranded in the middle of nowhere whilst being picked off one by one. If you are expecting a great, unforgettable flick then you'll be disappointed but let's be real, you aren't going to go in to watching this with high expectations.

Written, directed and produced by Josh Reed, Primal may seem like your typical violent monster / slasher flick, but in following formula the film did turn out to be rather enjoyable, if not cliché, but it worked. The opening scene some 12000 years ago gives us the premise where a caveman tries to communicate the presence of an unknown beast, only to be devoured very quickly before fast forwarding to today, with 6 travelling friends on a road trip to that exact same location for a camp and a hike.

The film takes the first 30 minutes to cue us in on the characters, given that with an ensemble, we expect certain molds to be adopted. For instance, there's always the ditzy, loud mouthed and slutty blonde (Krew Boylan) who's in the trip for some forest romp with studious looking boyfriend Chad (Lindsay Farris), who had enough when she starts to openly flirt with the alpha male of the group, Dace (Wil Traval), who's take away from the trip is the mysterious painting seen in the opening shot. Throw in the others like the group joker Warren (Damien Freeleagus), simple follower Kris (Rebekah Foord) and the one whom you know is more than meets the eye given the token phobia she must overcome at some point (Anja, played by Zoe Tuckwell-Smith), you have the requisite group for one heck of a monster attack.

I would liken the genre as an opportunity to study character dynamics and behaviours when placed under extremely stressful situations, such as the tendency for some to talk a lot without action, or to arrow others to perform various dirty-work What more, it gets interesting because the great unknown happens to be manifested into one of their own, so existential questions get called into the picture, especially when one gets transformed into a blood lusting beast with plenty of fang-like teeth replacing the human ones, extreme dexterity (an ability that varies its effectiveness from time to time) and a nasty violent temper, coupled with some nasty makeup to complete the revolting look set to strike fear.

There's the decision to play who lives and who dies, and as the audience you get roped in, based on past experience in similar genre films, to play guess who's next, as we listen in on all the bickering and disagreements, plus the warning signs that the characters themselves fail to heed. Of course these disagreements get chopped down to manageable size when the body count increases, and part of the guilty fun is to identify and apply genre clichés over the film and see if they still hold water. Most do.

For those into bloody gore, there are enough moments in Primal that are graphic enough to make you squirm, since the acts of violence are unflinching. The story gets built up quite nicely into the last hurrah, where unfortunately some really raw looking special effects set in a cave drew unnecessary attention to itself, and marred the experience of the crescendo carefully crafted.

In horror movie terms, Primal is nothing new or original. It follows a very predictable path of the whole "young people camping in the woods with a monster" story. The characters are fairly predictable, as is the ultimate ending.

What makes Primal stand out, though, is, aside from the Australian Outback setting, the monster itself. Sure, the general idea is pretty standard, but the actual character of the monster is one that, at least for me, is new and exciting. Definitely pulling from the name of the film, the monster is very animalistic in its movements and behavior, but what was most exciting is the bridge between man and beast that it creates. This is perhaps the most terrifying part of the entire movie; the hinting of ourselves from, relatively speaking, not that long ago.

Sadly, all of the tension, thrill, and the interest of our primal selves completely falls apart in the last twenty minutes or so, as it seems that the filmmakers blew their budget, in terms of both money and creativity, as we get a terrible and confusing climax full of horrible (especially by 2010 standards) CGI which hurls us through the wormhole (you'll see) to the expected, but not entirely bad, conclusion.

Oh, and one of the best, and most Aussie, ending lines to any movie.