Tags:
Film: Primal
Year: 2010
Director: Josh Reed
Writer: Josh Reed
Starring: Zoë Gameau, Krew Boylan and Lindsay Farris
Review:
This was a film that I remember seeing on the wall while working at Family Video. I didn’t know much about this one aside from the title. The reason I checked this out was when my buddies over on the Night Club podcast asked if I wanted to guest on an episode discussing this one. I agreed and this also doubled as a Journey through the Aughts.
Synopsis: a group of friends travel into the Australia wilds to view ancient cave paintings but soon find a horrible sickness gripping one of their own.
We begin in the past, seeing a man doing a cave painting. I wrote down that this was 12,000 years ago. He doesn’t see someone come up behind him. This other individual looks monstrous and in the shadows. They kill our painter.
It then jumps into the present. We have a vehicle full of friends. Driving is Dace (Will Travel). Sitting next to him is Anja (Zoë Gameau). They’re on the way to see an area where her great, great uncle found the cave paintings from the beginning. No one has seen them, as far as they know, in that time frame. It is near a mountain as a point of reference. Also with them is a couple, Mel (Krew Boylan) and Chad (Lindsay Farris). There is also Kris (Rebekah Foord) who has a crush on Dace. Warren (Damien Freeleagus) is in the back. He’s a jerk who picks on people.
Our group then parks and where they’re going requires them to go through a tunnel in the mountain. Anja has an issue though. Something we’ll learn was that she had a boyfriend who was cruel and locked her in a basement. She now has claustrophobia so this tunnel causes her to pass out. She cuts her hand during this, bleeding on the ground. We see that something sucks it up. A weird liquid is then released into a nearby pond.
These friends make their camp and find the paintings. They try to make sense of it as there seems to be a large, scary looking figure as the center. They decide to settle in for the night. They play a game that devolves into Mel wanting to go skinny dipping. Chad is annoyed with something that she said. She gets out of the water to make a discovery, she’s covered in leeches. Dace helps remove them. Soon after she develops a fever. This is just the beginning of the nightmare when more changes come over her. She becomes aggressive and whatever she has is contagious.
That is where I’ll leave my recap and introduction to the characters. Where I’ll start is first crediting the filmmaking team. This doesn’t have the biggest budget. It also knows that and works in its confines. Not everything looks great, but what I like is that we have this group of friends, going out into the middle of nowhere, getting stranded and then something bad happens where it is a fight for survival. It is a simple formula that is entertaining.
Now that I have that set up, let me then say that I like that there is this evil in this area since the dawn of time. These paintings are a warning. This is a remote area so that is why it is contained and anyone that comes here tends to succumb to it. That makes it an unoccupied zone situation. I love that this could even be considered Lovecraftian. I won’t go too much into this to avoid spoilers, but I’ll just say that there are tentacles involved. Regardless of what you consider it, I do like exploring the idea that there are secrets of nature that we don’t understand and this group unleashed something that’s been here for a long time. It then forces our characters to survive in any way that they can.
Let’s then discuss the nature of evil here more. The title is interesting. Again, I’ll go light here to not spoil this, but there is something in this area that gets released and infects our group. When you are infected, it makes you regress to primal nature. This is that aspect of the brain before we develop that just needs its base needs met. There is a loss of control that comes with it as well. You could even say that this is a different look at the zombie concept, focusing more on the infected subgenre there. It is in the vein of 28 Days Later.
I think that should be enough for the story so let’s go over to discuss the acting performances. There is an amateur feeling here, but I do think part of that comes from the writing. In general, I do think that the performances are fine. Gameau is good as our lead. The biggest issue with her is that they introduce this fear she has of this tunnel due to it reminding her of a traumatic event. I don’t think that gets developed enough. One of the better performances would be Boylan, only because she gets to be Mel and then she’s the first to be infected. Travel is up there with her. Freeleagus works as this character who pushes buttons. My friend would say that this is me in the group. Foord and Farris help to round this out as well. My only issue with the latter is that he’s whiney when we first meet him. I can’t fully fault the character though. He’s interesting as tensions mount though, I will say that.
All that is left then is filmmaking aspects. This is where it does fall short for me. It is mostly budgetary. I do think the cinematography and framing work capture this isolated area. My problems here come from what I’m guessing is a green screen. They just stuck out and they didn’t do a good enough job at masking it. The effects though were solid. They went practical and I love the look of those that are infected. Other than that, the soundtrack was fine. I did like what they did with sound design to make things creepier when we hear the infected people calling out. That adds atmosphere.
In conclusion, this film does good things and it feels like the budget is holding back where it falls short for me. What works in its favor is having this isolated location where our characters get stranded. How they do that work for me. Then you incorporate this plague that causes our characters to revert to their primal nature. The acting is fine. They are believable. I do think that this is made well enough. The cinematography and framing to capture where it is set, the practical effects and sound design leading the way. The green screen work just sticks out a bit too much. I still enjoyed my time with it despite the shortcomings.
My Rating: 6.5 out of 10