suite92 Anja, Krew, Lindsay, Kris, and Warren take a trip to the outback led by Dace. They are looking for cave paintings that have not been spotted for 120 years. Anja has some drawings left to her by an uncle from the 19th century. The group finds the site with little incident.Anja clearly has trepidation about when she reaches the opening of the cave. She has something akin to a panic attack and passes out after cutting herself by incidental contact with the rocks. Unfortunately, the blood of her family has been shed, which goes into the ground and the nearby water. This dooms the party...or does it? That is what the rest of this short film is about.They get about viewing the rock paintings, taking notes, and shooting photographs. The local fauna (mosquitoes, rabbit) seem to find them tasty. The dead rabbit had some fierce looking teeth, which should have been a clue. Mel's skinny-dipping had some bad side effects. When she came out, there were leeches all over her; that evening she gets a fever and her teeth start falling out.They try leaving, but the local wildlife have somehow disabled their SUV. By the next morning, Mel's teeth and personality have been replaced. She starts biting, which makes matters worse.Will anyone get out alive? If so, will they be regular humans?------Scores------- Cinematography: 7/10 Fine for the most part, except for interludes of very jerky camera motions.Sound: 7/10 The actors were adequately miked. The incidental music did not add much to the film.Acting: 2/10 Wil Traval was OK, The rest of the actors I could have done without.Screenplay: 4/10 This was a 15 minute story stretched to 84. The monster-human interludes were frequently boring and always unbelievable.SFX: 4/10 Those monster teeth look like they could never work at all.

Nitzan Havoc The Horror genre, as underrated as it might be, has several sub-genres that us Horror freaks know how to recognize and differentiate. "Primal" is a well made and nicely assembled combination of the virus/plague sub genre (like Cabin Fever) and various werewolves films. It uses just the right amount of motives and aspects of each of these sub-genres, and remains realistic and scary enough to be very enjoyable as a Horror film.The screenplay is good, with a clever script (and some very amusing dialogues giving us a nice, if short, occasional comic relief), the characters are reasonably realistic, and the make-up/effects department sure has done its homework.I must say the ending lacked, as is the case with many Horror films. "Primal" could have used a more elaborate one, better explaining the weird occurrences of the final 15 minutes so they don't appear to be coming out of the blue and almost forced.All in all, "Primal" isn't a masterpiece, but is a good and enjoyable film, and I'd recommend it to any Horror fan.

rachel allen This film was disappointing but in many ways it shouldn't have been, young peeps in the remote outback, monsters with teeth (scary teeth), what can go wrong? It starts off pretty well as the characters are believable enough and the backstory makes sense. I started getting bored when the insects arrived at the camp. Perhaps I missed it, but what were these insects? What were they doing? They ate a big hole in a tent and a bag, but then seemed to go away. They reappeared however when the peeps get back to their car, finding the insects had eaten the tyres. Obvious escape route thwarted but puzzling how these insects were so selective in what they ate and didn't eat! I was also puzzled by the ending- it just seemed rushed given the build up.

gavin6942 A group of friends travel below ground to view ancient cave paintings but soon find a horrible sickness gripping one of their own, which leaves them with nothing in their mind but a primal blood lust.Josh Reed wrote, directed, edited and produced this film. Any love or vitriol should be placed squarely on his shoulders. (At this time -- 2012 -- he seems to be devoting his time to the television series "The Hamster Wheel".) I notice others have called this a "good Australian horror film". Is that a compliment or not? Are Australian horror films so different from American, British or other films that they have to be judged on their own scale? If so, I would argue this is a good horror film and a great Australian horror film. Far better than "Wolf Creek" (which is respected for reasons far beyond my comprehension).Early on, we have a nasty rabbit impalement. While it did not bother me, those who dislike animal violence (even when the rabbit is clearly fake) may be a bit disturbed or grossed out. I will say some of the effects are slightly cheesy (such as the jumping shots), but the "primal" teeth are done very well. What was probably a cheap prop actually comes across as pretty effective.