Primal Rage (2018) User Reviews

Surprisingly well made

[omendata · 5/10 · 2 May 2018]

I have to disagree with the two reviewers who think this is rubbish , its actually quite a well made film and the special effects / makeup is pretty damn good for a low budget movie - easily Stan Winston level of 80's makeup and monster effects.

Patrick Magee is a name to watch out for as he wrote, produced, directed and did the special effects - usually I would cringe at that as no one ever can do all these things well and it usually means the film is going to be utter pants but i was wrong on this occasion - You can clearly see that the guy is actually interested in making horror and seems to like the werewolf genre - well done sir!

Hollywood should give this guy a blockbuster to direct and I bet he would make a better movie than any of the big names are doing now having just watched the awful Jurassic World and the rest of the duff movies coming out of Hollywood this year!

The problem the film has though is the poor acting and it is just not very scary.

I did like the addition of the old mediaeval hag/witch - very unusual and seemingly out of place as was the Indian hunter lol but it gave us a few laughs which is not a bad thing these days.

If you are into your horror in a big way then this will pass an evening but its just not very scary even though the gore quotient is quite high and well done - loved the chin ripping move; only seen that once or twice before and quite gory but as I said its just not scary and that's what kills the film and leaves it in the 5/10 average shelf! Its such a shame as Patrick Magee seems to have a high level of talent judging by his first movie!

Great practical effects, not so great acting

[CorpusTristis · 6/10 · 1 June 2018]

Many gruesome & graphic deaths. The creature was brutal, and the practical effects for it and its killings were very impressive. It could have sacrificed some gore in place of some suspense though.

The main characters were a bland couple, and the acting wasn't great there. At least the hunters were funny at times, and the sheriff was quite likable.

The plot was fairly basic, but that was fine by me. They established the couple's back story efficiently and had them in the midst of things before I knew it, which I appreciated. However, although it picked up fast, it didn't really pay off. The third act seemed a bit dragged out.

Still, it was enjoyable enough.

Good creature feature for the gore hounds

[terrencepatrix · 6/10 · 2 May 2018]

I'm not going to pretend this movie was exactly original, the formula has been done over and over for decades at this point. A couple finds themselves stranded and hunted by a dangerous predator, but there was a twist that's not normally seen in a creature feature like this. It's sort of a mash up of "Predator" meets Big Foot meets Native American folk lore.

The plot synopsis is exactly what you get in this movie, so there's no real point in going in to too much detail. A couple gets stranded in the woods, there's some dealings with weird redneck locals, and a monster. That's the movie. As others have stated, the acting isn't really all that great either.

Now why did I rate it a 6? Because it has some really good special effects gore. No CGI, real old fashioned special effects, which is always nice to see. Also I like the twist on the monster, it's not just a mindless beast, but a cunning, plotting, and motivated by pure hate and evil. Also the leading actress is really attractive so that's a plus, no nudity though.

If you're looking for a gore filled creature feature then this is for you.

Bigfoot meets Predator

[barcode72 · 5/10 · 2 May 2018]

I don't think they could have ripped off Predator any more if they tried, but it was a fun popcorn movie, the gore FX were top notch, and the creature looked pretty good too, and zero cgi is always a plus, 5/10

My wife ran off with bigfoot.

[nogodnomasters · 5/10 · 6 May 2018]

Big foot likes blondes. Ex-con husband attempts to rescue her plus redneck hunters.

Not you typical Bigfoot. This one wears a mask to disguise himself (not sure how that works) and also shoots a bow.

Liked the make-up. Characters were okay. Mild humor.

Guide: F-word. Sex/rape? brief partial nudity.

Bigfoot Predator

[mherrin-43253 · 5/10 · 23 July 2018]

Primal Rage: Directed by Patrick Magee and written by Jay Lee and Patrick Magee

It has been a while since my last review. I had to take a bit of a break to recharge my batteries to bring more thoughts on movies that doesn't include the phrase it wasn't the best movie but it wasn't the worst in every single review. I'm so tired of seeing this. You don't have to use this phrase to describe a middle of the road but enjoyable movie. You can say you enjoy the film without justifying it's place in the pantheon of movie placement. I hope that made sense.

This brings us to the movie Primal Rage: The Legend of Oh-Mah or Primal Rage: Bigfoot reborn. This played for one night only in theatres as a Fathom Event. I always find that fascinating when Fathom Events does this with movies that no one has heard of and there are no trailers for it. How does that even work exactly? I understand when they did it with Rob Zombie's 31 and Kevin Smith's Yoga Hosers, both terrible movies with some good qualities. This one though was a very odd what the hell so naturally I set about trying to track it down, trying to track down any reviews for it. Nothing.

But finally I found it and got the chance to watch and what I got was Bigfoot Predator with the witch from Sleepy Hollow thrown in for good measure to add some mystical qualities to the narrative. This movie felt like a hodge podge of elements thrown in there to maximumize the one chance this filmmaker might have to make a movie. It does draw you in a bit but it takes too long to get to the point where the Oh-Mah is hunting them. They run across a large group of hunters with rapey tendencies and they lose their clothes along the way(The main characters that is) in a vain attempt to draw out some vulnerability. Like being hunted by Bigfoot Voorhees wasn't enough.

The performances were okay. I thought the actor who played Max was really one note and nothing felt genuine with him. The actors playing the native Americans fared a bit better but still suffered with dialogue that was forced and robotic from them. That witch character though was straight out of a cartoon and really out of place in this movie. I understood what they were trying to do. They were trying to add more to the story than just surviving the monster in the woods. It would be a better film if they had streamlined everything into what worked.

What worked were the effects. They were top notch. Those deaths are grisly and gory and just excellent stuff. The bigfoot creature is also beautiful and really well done. The effects work are the highlight of this film which makes sense since the director comes from an effects background.

This movie is okay. It is definitely a middle of the road film with too much fat around the edges but it is an enjoyable creature feature. I can't recommend it but if you decide to check it out, it's enjoyable.

The kill scenes r the highlight, the film starts well, goes full rampage in the middle with solid kills but lags during the end. Enjoyable film for horror fans.

[Fella_shibby · 7/10 · 6 May 2018]

The director is the man behind the special effects of Spiderman, Jurassic Park, Death Sentence, Alien vs Predator.

So obviously there gonna be some good kills n yes the kill scenes are the dominating factor. The Sasquatch when it opens up its jaw looks more like Predator.

The character development is good n the cinematography is striking. The wide shots of the forest, the road n the river, are all striking. Thankfully none of the kill scenes r shot in the dark.

Coming to the bad things, initially when the couple is standing out of the car to see the injured man, the lead actor is hit by some stones n he falls into the river. After being rescued by his wife, our guy forgets everything about the pelting stones. Maybe temporary amnesia. Lol.

During the kill scenes, the big foot spares or misses killing the lead guy n he is being rescued n healed by some witch doctor who looks more scarier.

No background story about the witch.

The sheriff n the guy goes to the forest to rescue our heroine n it takes hell lottuva time for the big foot to fight our guy.

The final confrontation is laughable, our guy fighting the big foot. Lol.

The ending was predictable for me.

Bad writing plus a subtle agenda... Acid trip is ok if you are a...

[august-78865 · 1/10 · 9 June 2018]

There are too many people giving good grades, of good will to this movie. The movie at the start seems to be good, has a slow pace and a great atmosphere. the lack of music contributes to making the initial accident more dramatic.

But nevertheless ... unfortunately ... it falls too much in bad performances, big, Big, BIG, moments of SJW: *it's fine that people who are not white are racists and misogynists, but the film makes it clear that white men should always be stupid, patriarchal and murdered by the monster / defender of the forest, *ok there we have something for environmentalists / anti hunting /antiguns to love the movie: misogynist hunters killed by an animal with mystical influence of the Native American tribes. (WOW all that in a single movie? ... yup swallow it ...

Besides, Surprise! Bigfoot wants to have children because he is probably bored of just hunting and eating white "men that are creating chaos to forest" (quoted).

The stupid thing about this movie is that the girl after her zoophilic experience can still run with a gun and chase the big foot instead of just running away.

The entire transition with the scene behind the store with "Indian bosses" is unnecessary, there are almost 30 minutes of indigenist pro-inclusion propaganda film in a horror movie (besides the deputy acid trip) that are forced on the film, Im would rather prefer to watch a documentary ok? this is supposed to be a horror flick.

The film tries to justify all this footage so that the sheriff and the husband meet and then re-enter the forest just for them selves armed with "magic weapons" (Yes ...).

My opinion Bad writing plus a subtle agenda

Decent Creature Feature

[Randall-Flagg01 · 6/10 · 4 May 2018]

Puzzled at the 1 and 2 star reviews. What did you expect? This a good throw-back creature feature with some really decent gore. Yeah, its a guy in a gorilla suit and the ending resembles Predator 1&2....so what? Sit back and enjoy some mindless entertainment.

Oh-Man! A cheap imitation of The Predator with some guy in a gorilla suit.

[spacetruckin-77996 · 3/10 · 2 May 2018]

So imagine the Predator is some kind of rapist, man-eating gorilla with something something Native American and that's the central premise of this film. The plot is half-baked with huge, nonsensical holes, loose threads and poor resolution, like a typical, low budget creature feature. The character development makes absolutely no sense, with people changing arcs mid-way and doing stuff just to move the plot along. The acting is terrible all around, like they've all wandered in from different movie sets and don't know what they're doing here. And many of the shots are ripped straight off from iconic Predator scenes. Still, I suppose with all the hype, the producers might reap some good returns on their investment and hit us with another one of these monkey-shaped turds.

Seriously. Just go watch the original Predator instead.

Finally another decent bigfoot movie

[tontar-54238 · 8/10 · 3 May 2018]

Disclaimer: Bigfoot movies are subject to a tough crowd. That's because there are people who believe bigfoot is real, and they have extreme expectations that a bigfoot movie should represent their own personal vision of what bigfoot is. And then there are the people who don't believe bigfoot is real, and they might not even be drawn to watch a bigfoot movie. So often enough, films about bigfoot get trashed because they have the worst critics possible, bigfoot believers who simply cannot agree on what a bigfoot really would be, and who can't stand what they believe is a misrepresentation of their beloved beast.

That said, this movie delivers a decent beast for the widest possible crowd. It draws on a good deal of the bigfoot mythology, which is in fact quite broad and non-standardized. The thing is, while this will not be the bigfoot movie for most believers, it will likely satisfy a definite slice of the bigfoot community who will think that this interpretation is exactly in alignment with their vision of what bigfoot would be.

Aside from the fact that a lot of bigfooters will be upset at the presentation of THIS particular bigfoot manifestation, the fact is that this is a monster movie. It's not Harry and the Hendersons. It's not Baby Bigfoot. It's not your run of the mill bigfoot as the happy, forest guardian who smiles a lot and speaks to birdies. This bigfoot is a monster, and it looks like a monster and acts like a monster. In that regard, it performs quite well.

Of course, there will be plenty of things to nit pick about. The acting was kind of stiff or perhaps inexperienced with some of the actors, but not so much that it isn't a credible situation. There are some costume issues here and there, nothing major but still noticeable, there are some makeup or prop issues, but again not worth attacking. Saying that I would have interpreted the monster differently goes without saying; virtually everyone would have done it somewhat differently, but hey, when I make a movie I'll get to make it my way, and until then I'll enjoy how others make their movies and not complain too much.

My suspicion is that the audience that will appreciate it the most, will have a hard time finding their way to this film, while those who will be most critical will find it first and comment critically on it being a bad film, a waste of time, or "not what bigfoot really is". That's unfortunate because the movie is really a decent movie. I'd even say it was a good movie, especially considering all of the creative and financial aspects that play into making films.

As I said, I liked this film because it is a refreshing take on a well worn and tired genre, the bigfoot film. The best way to enjoy it is to unhitch yourself to presuppositions about what bigfoot is, and just enjoy the ride. It's not a great film, but it really is a good film, well worth watching. I'd love to see this one succeed so that others might find a viable market in this genre. I like bigfoot movies, and if critical believers attack every bigfoot film that comes out, they will quickly find that they have undermined the marketability of ANY future bigfoot films.

Moderately watchable....

[s3276169 · 6/10 · 22 May 2018]

Lets start with the bad. I really don't see why writers seem to think making key and peripheral characters, mostly unlikable, is a good thing in the context of a survivalist horror? After all if you can't empathise with the characters predicament, how can you genuinely feel afraid for them when things turn sour? Its a mistake I see again and again.

I think too, the decision to introduce the creature stalking them so early in the piece, in its entirety, wasn't well considered either. The sense of the unknown, the half seen or glimpsed adds to the creeping sense of mystery and menace in a poorly lit forest setting.

On the upside the pacing of this film is decent. It builds well as a group of suspect hunters and an unfortunate couple make their way through the woods. The gun ho antics and at times menacing attitudes of the hunters is gradually eroded as they come to realise there is something else lurking in the woods and its by no means friendly.

It leads into some fairly intense action which includes more than its share of blood soaked horror, that reminded me, in a low tech, cave man kind of way, of films like Predator .

In short Primal Rage is a moderately watchable B grade horror flick that's acceptable fare for a slow wet weekend. A 6/10 from me.

Complete Mess

[claudio_carvalho · 4/10 · 25 June 2018]

"Primal Rage" is a terrible horror film with a confused storyline. The promising beginning recalls 1972 "Deliverance", with the redneck hunters dangerously teasing the young couple. It is amazing the lack of chemistry of this lead couple. The Indian community and the sheriff recall 1971 "Billy Jack" with their visions. And the creature is a hybrid of "Predator" and any low-budget Big Foot film. The result is a complete mess with awful conclusion. My vote is four.

Title (Brazil): Not Available

Could Have Been Done Far Better

[twelve-house-books · 2/10 · 2 September 2018]

Too many overdone ideas and an unhealthy portion of hokey material (an old woman made strange looking by wearing a witch Halloween mask; Bigfoot creatures who shoot arrows from primitive bows they make; a peyote ceremony that magically and instantly connects an old Indian sheriff to his ancestral belief system) make what could have been a very scary film into something not worth recommending. Too, the rape of the pretty girl by the Skunk-Ape was hard to watch. This one gets a solid 2 stars for good acting on the part of the girl and the deputy.

Oh yes, you'll feel primal rage alright

[Gavin_V · 1/10 · 6 May 2018]

I watched this movie based on some of the reviews posted on this page. Initially it started at a decent pace and with decent acting. The cinematography was stunning. About ten minutes in, things start to deteriorate. The obvious clash with the local hunters who you just know you'll see later on, and when you do, the scenes are so poorly structured and the dialogue so bad you actually want cheer for the monster and help IT kill every single member of the cast. The male and female lead have zero chemistry with each other. The male lead (I really couldn't be bothered to look up his name or any of the cast for that matter) is so wooden it's like he was reading his parts off a teleprompter. This movie gets 10/10 for the bucket of monster poo that it is. Oh, and the way the male lead and the sheriff suddenly transition into seasoned warriors towards the end is hysterical. The 'twist' at the end of the movie only serves to punch big monster sized holes in the plot. So, in summary, you'd be better off watching a documentary or 5 about Bigfoot than this garbage.

The bar has been moved again .. yes.. down

[Som1FromTheCrowd · 1/10 · 23 May 2021]

They had all they needed to make a good movie.. but... the script.. and one who gave the green light for this... managed to lower the bar further. I watched some really stupid movies over the years but this is a new surprise even for me. As someone said the gore is done well.. the setting is good but everything else is below zero rating so the overal true rating would be somewhere between 0 and 1.

Omg what did i just watch...

like the originality of it

[zainahmad-90820 · 6/10 · 29 September 2018]

In a time filled with horror movies rated pg and cheap jumpscares I feel like this movie didn't pretend to be like the others, even tho there seems to be some inspiration from some movies. Some of the main actors bad others were pretty good and made entertaining characters and the effects were nice.

Waste of time

[sixzerodriver · 1/10 · 3 August 2021]

I'm sick of garbage directors inserting their bias into writing, and I'm sick of moronic actors not realizing it and playing the part, however poorly.

Apart from the above issues, the acting is horrible, just ridiculous.

Don't waste your time.

Easily the best bigfoot film with outstanding practical effects.

[tresm87 · 7/10 · 3 May 2018]

This is as good as it gets for the Sasquatch/bigfoot genre with absolutely brilliant practical effects focusing on the bigfoot/witch makeup/design, and very realistic gore detail. The story is somewhat interesting with the native folklore mythology, however isn't totally engrossing overall with some cliche tropes scattered throughout and a dialogue that is truly awful. However what this film focuses on perfectly are the ominous visuals and the unrelenting brutality, and it honestly looks better and more believable than most big budget horror films doused in oversaturated cgi, which makes this even more of an accomplishment due to its low budget. There are several Predator homages/influences but i don't see them as being ripoffs like some have stated. The acting is pretty mediocre on all fronts but thats kind of to be expected as a secondary aspect of a film of this nature. Overall if you enjoy bigfoot/sasqautch material at all, and appreciate practical make up/effects, this is a must see. I also recommend a 2014 bigfoot film called Exists which is also pretty solid though not as good as this.

One of the dumbest movies ever made

[mhorg2018 · 1/10 · 24 November 2018]

I'll give this movie this - the practical effects were really well done. Too bad the directing, story and acting were bad enough that I'm really surprised this hasn't been on the SyFy(less) channel a bunch of times. What was the monster? Was it a bigfoot? A mutant cave man? Trog's cousin? Why did it need weapons when it was strong as hell? And why the hell did the one moron with a shotgun take a shot, saw that it hurt this thing and then decide he was too scared to shoot again? When the woman had a rifle, how the hell did she miss from twenty feet away? More importantly, HOW THE HELL DID SHE HIT THE GROUND WITH A SHOT? Just another stupid bigfoot wanna be movie. And as fast as this thing was, how did a half starved, dehydrated woman out run it? Really one of the dumbest movies ever made.

Actually this is NOT a 10 rated movie, BUT...

[smokecombs · 10/10 · 15 July 2018]

No it's not a 10 rated movie however I feel it was rated by many without actually being viewed. IMO this is one of the more unique monster movies, or a variation of a type of Bigfoot movie not even remotely close to anything we've ever seen before. It's hard to really name a sasquatch type of movie that has been anything above halfway decent. This movie was not just decent to me, bur borderline, GOOD. The "lead" actor is pretty horrible, the male lead, the female only slightly better. It's the abilities and the uniqueness of the monster antagonist that make this movie. My true rating would be a 6, maybe a 7 out of 10 as far as fun viewing. Acting is maybe a 4. I just don't think the 4 it's rated right now is a fair rating with too many 1 and 2 stars. Of this specific type of movie, this is the best one I have ever seen that has a Bigfoot type of creature. It's by no means a typical Bigfoot story you have heard some hunter relate before.

Good old fashion 80's horror

[realalien-2 · 7/10 · 28 February 2018]

Saw the film last night. For a low budget film there are some good moments. Some parts work better than others and it's a little slow setting up the characters but when the creature enters the film that's when it works great. The action scenes are well done and on the most part the acting is good. It doesn't shy away from the gore like the films from the 80's. It could have done with some tighter editing here and there too. music is very good . all in all the director who wrote, directed, built and played the creature did a great job. hats off to him.

If you're hot enough, Big Foot will pound you I nstead of eat you...

[sian_b_badger · 4/10 · 30 May 2018]

Horror tip takeaway - aim to be the hottest thing in the woods. It may make you a target for gun toting hillbillies but Big Foot likes 'em pretty.

Conclusion - Big Foot (Big Feets?) just want someone to love...& a whole lot of people to brutally murder (those who aren't above a 7 in the hotness scale).

Primal Cringe

[Retsenzent · 19 July 2018]

What a total mess this is! An ex-convict, his blonde girlfriend, a pack of hunters, a couple of native american police officers and -I guess- Bigfoot stars this garbage, which includes a very cheap disguise of the monster, a long -and inexplicable- scene where the couple is naked, letting their clothes dry, after having fallen from a mountain and a extended Native American ritual.

This has to be money laundering, otherwise, I can't explain how someone can green light a project like this rubbish.

Atrocious

[richkiel · 1/10 · 11 July 2021]

This film barely even has a plot. There are no memorable or likable characters, no character development, no real story to tell. It's just random filler and pointless scenes for about 90% of its length, and some poorly directed and edited action in the remaining 10%. The characters are laziest cliches imaginable. Their idiocy, however, still cannot explain their motivations for the ludicrous actions they take during the film. Basically everyone, including the protagonists, is there to sooner or later get killed by sasquach in some gruesome manner. And they make the job easy for the beast, by doing the dumbest thing imaginable at every opportunity. You don't even need sasquatch to get these guys killed, they would probably just kill each other anyway, or get lost and starve to death, or maybe accidentally fall off a cliff or something.

To just briefly illustrate the stupidity of this script, at one point they go to hunt down sasquatch, and they don't bring guns because "he can smell gunpowder from a mile away". But will he not smell THEM as well, regardless of whether they have guns or not?

Oh, and by the way, this film is so lazy that it had to have hillbillies even in the forests of northwest America. Whether they came from Portland or Seattle is unclear.

This film is just unwatchable garbage, with moronic characters and extremely annoying cinematography and editing. Most of the time you have no idea what's happening, due to quick edits, blurry shots, and closeups in which you can't figure out what's going on.

By the way, to make things more interesting, though never contributing to the story in any kind of meaningful way, they threw in a witch into the plot. There is an actual witch, and she is clearly not human, but the local police and residents seem not to notice.

Don't watch this film, it is literally unwatchable, and it even ends with a moronic anticlimax that those who have seen the B-movie trash called "Night Claws" might even recognize as an "homage" to this film.