Primal (2009)

Dont you just hate it when a movie is so close to delivering? When there is just one flaw that keeps it from being a really good movie? Primal, a rather good Australian evil shit in the backwoods movie, does just that. This review will be full of spoilers so if you dont what to know about some stuff that goes down towards the end of the movie you should stop reading after the end of this passage. In short, Primal is a decent little goremovie with a cool plot, fun violence and gorgeous Australian location photography. Well worth watching but there are some nags. Spoilers will now ensue.

A bunch of rather generic youngsters go out into the Australian wilderness to find some cave paintings that havent been seen by anyone in 120 years. They arrive, bicker a lot as usual in this kind of movie and when the blonde of the group goes skinnydipping in a small lake, all hell breaks loose. You see, there is something in the water which turns her into some sorts of mindless predator complete with lots of nasty teeth and a hunger for human flesh. There is also some sort of weird insects at the location, feeding on just about anything which results in destroyed tires and no way to leave. Even more, there is some sort of tentacled thing in a nearby cave that dissolves and feed on the remains of the bodies which the infected people leave there. All this, some decent gore and even some nudity.

Ok, so what is wrong with this picture? Well, for starters, there is not a character in this movie that you actually want to survive. They are a bunch of whiny, bickering idiots and you just want them to die. Horribly. Which, on the other hand, they do but still, not a single person to root for. Except maybe that tentacled blob in the cave. And here is the other problem of the movie. It doesnt really fit that well into the movie. In the last 10 minutes of the movie we are introduced to this slimy, tentacled thing that seems more appropriate in a SyFymovie than in this otherwise well shot and directed flick. I am a sucker of tentacled monsters but this did not sit well with me. It feels out of place and isnt particulary well animated. Still, it is a movie with a tentaclemonster, of which there can never be too many. I'm gonna stop this review here, not waste your time by contradicting myself over and over again. Primal is well worth watching, well shot and has some tension and gore, only slightly flawed. I'm gonna cry myself to sleep tonight. Sorry tentaclemonster. Sorry.