Primal (2009)
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Primal turned out to be a surprisingly entertaining Aussie flick, despite borrowing from several other genre pics.
The movie follows a group of friends as they journey to an unknown jungle location in search of an ancient rock painting that hasn't been seen in over 100 years. With only old photos to go by, they somehow manage to find their way to the painting, but not before venturing through an ominous old cave, where one of the girls cuts her arm before passing out.
This sets off a small chain of events, "awakening" something from within the cave. After setting up camp, one of the
Primal isn't looking to break any new ground here, borrowing from films like The
The characters are all pretty standard, with an emo guy being the most useless and annoying of the bunch. We're given a nice amount of the red stuff, not shying away from a gooey close-up of some chomping flesh or a head smashing. All of which are used with practical effects.
Unfortunately, by the end of the movie the filmmakers opted to use CGI for the sequence involving the creature in the cave, which looked horrible and distracts from the entire scene. Things definitely seemed a bit rushed before the credits rolled -- my only real gripe for an otherwise entertaining movie.
Primal is a surprisingly entertaining no-brainer horror flick that doesn't try to deliver anything we haven't already seen, but still manages to keep us watching. Aside from the horrendous CGI and rushed editing towards the end, the film is worth a check, especially if you just go in expecting a simple and straight-forward horror entry.