Review: Primal

Six mates (including Zoe Tuckwell-Smith as a girl with some emotional and psychological baggage) head out to outback Australia to check out some apparently rare indigenous cave paintings. However, one of the gang (a slutty blonde played by Krew Boylan) goes skinny-dipping and gets infected with something ancient and evil that sees her transform into some kind of weird piranha/human hybrid, picking off her friends one-by-one.

Ever see a movie where you probably would’ve liked it if it got rid of the 70% crap and instead replaced it with more of the 30% that was kinda cool? This 2010 film from writer-director Josh Reed is one such film, and a frustrating experience. This is better than a lot of crap American genre films of late I could name, but by recent Aussie genre film standards, it’s a disappointment.

I just couldn’t get around to having any interest whatsoever in these horrible characters. Aside from the lead character, these are terrible people who treat her shockingly and unreasonably. I don’t believe that these characters would be friends at any point. The foul-mouthed, skanky blonde grommet (the bizarrely named Krew Boylan, in a degrading performance), in particular was begging to die from moment one, whilst the irritating and nerdy Warren (Damien Freeleagus) just stands out like a sore thumb amongst the rest. He’s probably one of the more interesting characters, but seriously annoying. Furthermore, two of the characters who survive the longest, are among the most useless fucks imaginable. It made it damn near impossible for me to care about any of this. I mean, sorry, but if my girl starts growing piranha teeth, that’s the point at which I’m ditching her. Even I have my limits of what I’d put up with. Piranha teeth and flesh-eating are pretty well at the top of the list. But the girly-named Lindsay Farris (or his character at least) and I obviously have different lists.

The cheap CGI here doesn’t help, either. I get sick of saying it, but it appears filmmakers just won’t learn: If you can’t afford to hire ILM, don’t use CGI.

All of the performances are average at best, but special mention must go to Rebekah Foord, who is so incompetent that she mistakes an anguished facial expression with her ‘orgasm face’. Weird. Lead actress Zoe Tuckwell-Smith is probably the least sucky, and certainly plays the most sympathetic and interesting of the lot.

The dialogue here is terrible, in fact, it seems to be like 60% profanity. And it’s the most degrading, misogynistic profanity too, with way too many uses of the C-word. I love profanity and use it quite frequently, but I only really like it when it’s used creatively and in the right situations. This is a heightened situation, sure, but that particular word is so crass, degrading, and as used here, seriously lacking in creativity. Replace the C-words with F-words, but also reduce the amount of profanity overall, and the film becomes a bit more tolerable.

The film, as I said, has elements that I liked. It opens well, with creepy sounds, and really nice cinematography and scenery. Personally, when the film gets to the cave location late in the film, I wished it had utilised it more, but still, this is a good-looking film. I’m not a fan of shaky-cam, but it’s used well here, in a kind of “Evil Dead” way. In fact, the entire set-up of the film, including the characters, has an “Evil Dead” vibe, or at least it’s quite derivative (Films like “Turistas”, “The Ruins”, and “Wrong Turn” all spring to mind). The film does indeed add a twist, and it’s a weird and freaky one, no doubt. Unlike “Road Train”, at least when this one strays from the expected, it does so in truly bizarre fashion.

There’s something deliciously fucked-up and nasty about some of this (there’s some nice gore too), but character is key for me, and the characters here suck. I suppose there’s an audience for this film who won’t mind the unlikeable characters, but I minded them very much, and they ruined any potential the film might’ve had. Not awful, just very, very average. Next time, Mr. Reed, get someone else to write the thing, OK?

Rating: C