Film: Primal
Release date: 28th February 2011
Certificate: 18
Running time: 85 mins
Director: Josh Reed
Starring: Krew Boylan, Lindsay Farris, Rebekah Foord, Damien Freeleagus
Genre: Horror
Studio: Kaleidoscope
Format: DVD & Blu-ray
Country: Australia
This is an English-language release.
The arrival of Wolf Creek in 2005 announced Australia as a genuine source for respected modern horror cinema, but the output since has done little to build on that promise. So the release of Primal on DVD brings with it a certain amount of buzz that there is a new Australian horror with teeth. But is Primal the beast it promises to be?
Beginning 12,000 years ago, Primal kicks off with an Aborigine painting on the wall outside a cave. Unbeknownst to him, something is watching him, and it’s only a matter of time before there is more than paint splattered on the rock.
Jumping forward to the present day, we follow six friends in the Australian wilderness who are out to be the first to see the painting for thousands of years. Passing through the cave, the youngsters disturb something, and it’s not long before a dormant creature awakens - and it’s hungry.
After swimming in water infected by the creature, Mel (the blonde promiscuous one) develops a fever. Then she develops sharp teeth, and a taste for raw meat. Soon the group are in a fight for their lives as the infection spreads and the infected attack.
If they are to survive, they will have to become as primal as the infected, and battle their fears to find out what is truly happening around them…
There are many forces at work in Primal. On the surface, it is a slasher based around the idea of infection, in a similar vein to Cabin Fever. Further into the film, we get into the squelchy realms of a monster movie that seems to want to be a cross between The Thing and The Descent. Then there is the idea that if a member of the group becomes primal, the uninfected will have to reduce themselves to a similar state in order to survive. Twinned with this theme is the nature of the wild and the wilderness, respect for which should be maintained lest you fall foul of something with teeth. Shame, then, that Primal never comes close to reaching the level of the films it riffs on, and doesn’t manage to make the themes work on any level.
The opening scene offers some creepy promise; with an Aboriginal painter placing what we come to learn is a warning on the wall of a cave, occupied by a mysterious and hungry creature. It is a good looking scene, with an effective stalk-and-slash moment, which efficiently sets up the rest of the film. As in the majority of modern horror, we are then introduced to a collection of clichéd young adults as they make their way to the cave to view the painting. We meet the lone woman with a dark past that haunts her, the alpha male who can’t keep his torso covered, the promiscuous blonde and her irritating boyfriend, plus a comedy male, and a pointless photographer who seems there simply to even up the genders. It isn’t impossible to draw convincing characters in a claustrophobic horror setting as Neil Marshall proved with The Descent, however, here the characters appear as nothing more than fodder for the infection or infected.
If Primal’s comedy was genuine instead of accidental then this would work, and the film would be an enjoyable romp. What we get instead is a film short on just about everything that makes horror work effectively, such as gore, menace, escalating terror and convincing performances.
Josh Reed, directing his first feature, does a decent job of building tension early on. The characters, while never being interesting enough to care about, are put through their paces to reasonable effect, arriving at the cave, discovering one’s claustrophobia, and another’s libido, building nicely to the moment when the first unfortunate cliché is infected by a virus that will turn her primal. The manifestation of the infection is also handled reasonably well, at first, with a fever, then loss of teeth, and finally the growth of hideous fangs. It is when the infection takes hold proper, and the horror begins, that the film falls apart. Reed’s ideas are clearly bigger than his budget, and the effects are bad to the point of unforgiveable. The direction, at times, lacks any real skill, and the underuse of the Australian wilderness is almost criminal.
Hinted at throughout is the fact that there is something living in the cave. The arrival of the characters causes it to wake up, and the infected feed it at regular intervals. This is supposed to build tension as we are waiting for the moment when the survivors flee the infected and enter the cave. When they do, what could have been an effective (if completely insane) climax turns out to be a nonsensical mess that is little more than an excuse for the most appalling CGI you are ever likely to see. Instead of the intense, insane climax hoped for, what we get is something tasteless, confusing and utterly uninspired.
Primal feels confused and cheap. Every time the film threatens to be fun, it pulls away and frustrates with its lack of genre savvy and awful characters. It’s a pity, as somewhere in the mess is a good idea waiting to get out, and a director who clearly isn’t short of imagination. Primal could have been a fun entry into a well established genre, or it could even have been a relevant, original and visceral horror. Instead, it seems the filmmakers didn’t know which way to take it, and it turns out to be neither. It would be a shame to think that Australian horror peaked with Wolf Creek, but this offering gives little evidence to the contrary. RM
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