Primal

2010


Director Josh Reed

 A warning statement within the synopsis for Primal referred to ‘Strong sexual violence.’ Given the amount of blood, biting and other lovely things taking place as the seconds ticked by, it created a rather ominous trepidation as to just what this ‘sexual violence’ was going to be. And there it was. Was it strong? No, not really. Was it disturbing as hell? A bit? Was it actually … a bit funny? Oh yeah. That kind of encapsulates Josh Reed’s low-budget Australian horror; it suggests something far darker, far more intense than what is given; but in the end is just a tad silly.

The plot follows a group of students on a jolly nice sojourn in the outback studying a remote rock painting. Things take a turn for the worst though, when one of the group - the sexually promiscuous Mel - becomes ill following an ill-advised skinny dipping session in the local water. Soon the previously blonde beauty has become nothing but a savage, bloodthirsty creature with only one thing on her mind: their blood. That’s right, folks, she’s become PRIMAL!

There isn’t much in the way of originality about Primal. The set-up is about as familiar as an old jumper your Nan has knitted: a group of extremely attractive, extremely sexually active youngsters travel to an isolated place where, naturally, no one can find them, and carnage ensues. What does make a change, however, is the use of the Home & Away extras themselves as the monsters, rather than some naff bloke in a suit, or some very dodgy CGI. Instead of the group ‘slut’ being offed first, as the laws of horror would suggest, she instead becomes the killer; a combination of the infected from Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later and the vampires from David Slade’s 30 Days of Night. More disgusting than creepy, but strangely effective nonetheless.

The fact that this disease is passed on through the blood is rather obvious sexual metaphor given the age of these characters, and the fact that the main babe, Zoe Tuckwell-Smith’s Anja, is hinted at being a rape victim. In the end we all become savage killers. Duh. In the end we all become nothing but animals. Duh. In the end we start fucking each other whilst we’re eating. Wait, what? Yes, the sexual undertones of Primal are so blatant it’s as though George Romero wrote the script whilst standing on his head, consuming magic mushrooms like Revels.

Things degenerate to a farcical level towards the end, as Anja tries to escape through the mysterious cave, which seems to be the root of this monstrous infection. All that can really be said is that if you’re lucky enough to have seen Andrzej Zulawski’s Possession, featuring the infamous scene involving Isabelle Adjani doing the wild thing with a weird tentacle creature, you’ll have a pretty good idea what goes on in that rocky crevice.

It’s horribly clichéd in many aspects, but in terms of its characters and actual plot, Primal is actually rather unpredictable. Aside from our plucky, annoyingly prophetic, conveniently claustrophobic heroine, no one seems to die in the usual order of horror cinema, and it’s hard to imagine anyone guessing just what the hell that cave was all about before the end. I’m still having trouble now. So whilst Primal is on one level the standard cheap and nasty piece of gratuitous horror cinema we are used to seeing on television of an evening, it does at least try to do something interesting with itself. Plus, it has one of the funniest last lines in years.

** / *****

Put your feet down, love.