Main cast: Zoe Tuckwell-Smith (Anja), Krew Boylan (Mel), Lindsay Farris (Chad), Rebekah Foord (Kris), Damien Freeleagus (Warren), and Wil Traval (Dace)
Director: Josh Reed

Primal is one of those old movies that I just happen to catch, and I have to say: the actor whose name is Wil Traval, that is not really his real name… is it?

Mr Traval is clearly cast as the eye candy for people that like to look at guys here, as he has a few scenes in just some black boxers and his character also loves taking off his shirt for whatever reason. I’m not complaining, naturally. There is also Lindsay Farris here, before he gets beefed up for his stint in Ash vs Evil Dead, but sadly, his character Chad is just dumb and annoying for the most part.

This one is about a bunch of idiots traveling to some Australian jungles because Dace is an anthropology student and his excuse is that he wants to study some symbols found outside this mysterious cave. Well, mysterious caves are always a source of joy in this kind of movies, as these idiots will soon learn.

There’s Dace, of course, and Anja, the only one that doesn’t skinny dip or do fun things so she may as well has “final girl” tramp-stamped on her forehead. The rest are just annoying, dumb, shrill, and forgettable. Well, Warren is especially obnoxious as the unfunny prankster of the lot, but he dies first so that’s one good thing that this movie does.

The problem begins when Mel decides to go skinny dipping in some pond, one that she has little knowledge of what can be inside… in Australia… so I guess nobody should be surprised when, after being beaten by leeches, she undergoes a painful and bloody transformation, growing fangs and claws and killing Warren as I cheer her on.

So yes, these idiots are now being hunted by a monster that was once their annoying friend, so let’s hope they all die for coming to this place and showing zero survival instinct in the wilderness.

I suppose the premise could be interesting, but I find that the disparate elements here, from mutated savage humanoids to some weird tentacle monster out of a hentai thing, don’t come together well to form a coherent big picture. Perhaps on their own, each element could work, but the script doesn’t really glue them together well aside from a flimsy one may be linked to another in some tenuous way.

Also, while I don’t believe this movie has a big budget, the entire “Australian outback” setting looks too clean, too bright to create a sense of dread in me. These characters don’t even have armpit stains on their shirts even after supposedly trekking for a bit, much less having any dirt or whatever on them like what would happen to folks that have been trekking through the woods.

Furthermore, the movie cheats. Early on, monster Mel is unbeatable and the law of physics hold, but later on when the movie needs the final girl to be triumphant, all of a sudden Mel becomes a useless weakling and our glorious heroine develops what seems like superhuman strength and agility like she’s secretly a super hero all this while and she has been hiding her powers because she too wants to see all the morons around her die first.

As for the scares, they are mostly pointless jump scares from Warren’s dumb pranks or the idiot ladies just screaming now and then, while the gore isn’t that much considering that the first half or so of the movie is front loaded with imbeciles acting like, well, imbeciles. There are two halfway decent gory scenes, but that’s about it.

All in all, this is a pretty forgettable movie that is powered and propelled by the stupidity of the main characters, and there isn’t much else about it that can make up for this nonsense.