Primitives Blu-ray Review

I like Cannibal films. Sure there gross outs but there still fun to watch for the most part. Movies like Cannibal Holocaust and Cannibal Ferox are classics in the exploitation / horror community. Sure there are countless others but of course those are the two most famous. Now there is one out there that is actually very much under the radar. It’s an Indonesian cannibal movie, but filmed in the same style as the above mentioned Italian films of this nature. Its called Primitives aka Savage Terror. And one thing I can say, its sure different.

Primitives is about a group of students who decide its best to do their own research on a paper they ae writing about primitive culture and decide to head on out to the jungles and find a savage tribe to write about. That way they can have a great first hand account. Now of course we all know that’s a bad idea. They hop on a little raft, head down river, and after the raft crashes and they become separated, two of them are captured by the local tribe. They are identified as Cannibals, but there surprisingly not as savage as I am used to seeing in these films. They grunt a lot and wear paint but they are actually not all the vicious.

The kids are all captured even though Tommy (The main guy) knows Karate and tries valiantly to fight them off one by one. I say that because they do not just charge him and eat him. No they get locked up and we are lead to believe they are just being held until they can be mutilated an eaten by this group of painted cannibals. Hopefully their friends can find them and save them in time.

Problem is, nothing happens. Nothing. We get a bit of nudity like in all these pictures and a good amount of animals killing animals. Hell we get a great alligator kill scene but the cannibal scenes are really not like the other films. We see gore and killing but there mostly of, like I said, animal, and jungle trap variety. Don’t worry they spike trap scene is great. But there is an awful lot of nothing going on here. In fact there is a large chunk of the film where there is no dialogue at all. I mean it looks good, the plot is there, it just doesn’t really come together like a bloodbath I’m used to seeing in these films.

Severine has plucked this film out of obscurity and are releasing it on Blu-ray. I must say the transfer, like everything they do is spot on. It looks very well in every sense of the word. The outside scenes are bright and colorful never blurry or two grainy, and that’s very impressive given the budget and age of the negative. The audio is crisp and clear and sounds great. In fact one thing I will praise is the score used for this film. Its very haunting and it does help to add a bit of terror to the mood. And as its Severine it even has a nice amount of special features.

• Producing PRIMITIVES – Interview with Producer Gope T. Samtani
• Way Down in the Jungle Deep – Interview with Screenwriter Imam Tantowi
• Trailer
• Alternate Title Sequence
• Reversible Wrap
• Exclusive Slipcover
• 
  

Not a bad film by any means, in fact its very well made for the budget, its just not a typical cannibal film, no matter how hard it wants to be. The acting is quiet good and the effects and score are well done, its just very tame compared to most of the other films of the genre. Still definitely something see.
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Overall 2.5 out of 5 Stars!