Stale Popcorn

You all know I have a bit of a penchant for any movie with a giant shark/crocodile/dog/delete as applicable etc hunting and eating a group of stock stereotypes, so Primeval (to give it it’s American title, as opposed to its rubbish, nonsensical British straight-to-DVD title) was on my radar back at the tail end of 2006 when my (then) girlfriend and I caught the trailer on her laptop and thought it looked like an “okay horror flick”.

As much as I adore Lake Placid, Lake Placid 2 burnt me pretty badly so I stepped cautiously into viewing this. After all, for every plus point that Primeval Kill seemed to have at face value, there seemed to be a negative working against it. Good trailer? Rubbish poster! ‘Lincoln’ (Dominic Purcell) from TV’s rather excellent Prison Break is in it? That chronically annoying black dude (Orlando Jones) from Evolution and The Replacements is in it too! Then there’s the plot; giant crocodile with a penchant for human flesh? Great stuff! Hotel Rwanda style secondary plot about genocide and civil war in Africa? Not so much!

Could this flick manage to pull it together well enough to be a real guilty pleasure of the “shit, but good shit” variety? Could it even transcend past that into something actually great? Or are we talking about a film so flat out awful that it makes Lake Placid 2 look like Lake Placid?

A while back fellow film critic and current Filmrot lead writer, James, paid me the compliment of saying I wasn’t afraid to stand up for the shit out there that was “good shit” or call mindless entertainment out for what it is and not look down my nose at it. So in line with that sensibility, I take great pleasure in reporting to you that Primeval Kill is a real guilty pleasure of a flick that has more working FOR it then AGAINST it. A B-movie in every sense of the word that does what it has to do to entertain with no airs, graces or pretensions. And if the rumour mill is to be believed, a film “so good” that the Weinsteins saw it and pulled the much delayed Rogue from coming out around it!

Let’s look at what doesn’t work first of all; as movie-mash-ups go this is probably one of the harder sells. “Godzilla meets The Blair Witch Project” worked for Cloverfield but “Hotel Rwanda meets Lake Placid” isn’t as attractive an option for this film. The idea of setting a giant serial killing crocodile on a rampage against the backdrop of a horrific civil war in Brunai, where the crocs zealous size is as a result of overfeeding on discarded war victims… and then throwing up a title card of “inspired by the true story of one of the world’s biggest serial killers” … well it kind of leaves a bit of a bad taste in your mouth really.

Then there’s the acting which is, for the most part, wooden and uninvolving and, in the case of Orlando Jones, flat out irritating and distracting. Not to mention the plot’s sense of pace which puts a priority on the civil war aspect when it has nothing interesting or original or respectful to say about the subject, and leaves the majority of that all important croc-carnage as an afterthought in the latter part of the film.

But here’s the thing, for a little nothing of a B-movie discarded to the bargain bins by Hollywood Pictures and Buena Vista, this is a flick with some surprisingly excellent special effects, a charismatic lead turn by Dominic Purcell (although his pec-exposing penchant for wearing his shirts a certain way a la his Prison Break character is clearly his version of an acting “trait” in the same vein that Al Pacino is known for being a “bit shouty”.) and some thrilling set pieces especially as the film careens towards its climax.

It’s big, dumb, loud, occasionally scary and entertaining stuff of the type that’ll surprise you by just how much fun it turns out to be. It’s not a particularly strong movie and you can see why the distributors threw it straight to DVD as there is no way in hell it could have competed with the “big boys” at the box office but, as B-movies go, Primeval Kill has its strengths and plays so well as a guilty pleasure that, given time, this could go on to equal the likes of Q: The Winged Serpent and Snakes on a Plane in finding an audience on DVD.

You want something simplistic and daft on a Friday or Saturday night down at your local rental store? Give this a go!

Posted on Thursday, March 6th, 2008 at 11:57 am under DVD Reviews (R2) by Gazz.
Tags:DVD Review Region 2

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