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A World Lost in Time Ruled by the EVILEST Animated Lizards with Spears! “The Primevals” reviewed! (Full Moon Features / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Yetis! Reptiles! “The Primevals” Lives Up To Its Title!

Himalayan Sherpas kill what was once considered the mythical Yeti.  The corpse is then donated to a U.S. university for scientific study.  When the grand reveal and world announcement that the abdominal snowman does exist, not only does the mankind go into a frenzy of questions and shock, but also proves sound one self-ostracized student’s long-rejected university thesis on the creature’s existences.  Teaming up with the university scientific department head, who now apologetically regrets personally rejecting his thesis based of speculatory concepts, an expedition to the Himalayas is formed to find, capture, and study the Yeti and sets in motion yet another discovery of a lifetime, a thousands of years old reptilian and technologically advanced alien race that have isolated themselves and have settled in a manipulated climate control river valley of the mountains and has surgically altered the minds of the Yeti to be more aggressive for battle and entertainment. 

“The Primevals” is a film 30 years in the making and is new film by a director who has long since passed away.  The 2023 released Full Moon production began its journey in 1993 with director David Allen, a visual and special effects artist who held prominence in Charles Band’s company as one of the go-to effects artists having played a big part of the crew in the “Puppet Master” franchise as well as note-worthy outside Band’s company with 1970’s “Equinox” and Joe Dante’s “The Howling” with stop-motion animation.  “The Primevals” relies heavily on stop-motion for the Yeti and reptilian race creatures based on Allen’s co-script treatment with another stop-motion and depth/dimensional effects master in “The Gate’s” Randall William Cook.  With all the live-action shots completed over the course of five years due to do Full Moon financial issues and “The Primevals” being an ambitious endeavor, David Allen untimely passes and the film is shelved for the unforeseeable future.  Once the ground under his feet was solid again, Band initiated an Indiegogo campaign to get the film finished and did so with a humble amount raised from contributors.  The Full Moon production was filmed in Romania, with the coproduction of Castle Film Romania, with additional mountain scenes filmed in Italy at the Dolomites mountains. 

Perhaps one of the more wholesome productions from Full Moon, “The Primevals” embraces that made-for-TV bravado of an expedition trek into a journey of the lost world.   The selected expeditioners are diverse enough to encourage character backstories and development, beginning with the civilized contentious history between Matt Connor, a former student whose Yeti thesis was rejected, and Dr. Claire Collier, the department director who did the rejecting on Matt Connor’s paper.  While the opportunity for a smug I-told-you-so moment is missed with a greater rebuff of excuses from the academia elite, respective role takers Richard Joseph Paul (“Oblivion,” “Vampirella”) and English actress Juliet Mills (“Beyond the Door,” “Demon, Demon”) are a cordial couple of platonic researchers who put their differences aside for the greater good of science.  In the real world, this premise wouldn’t fly and really harks back to underneath the bedrock of golden age cinema where creature features and lost world genre films reside.  They’re joined by the sport-hunting rehabilitated tracker and overall sensitive macho man Rando Montana, played by the screaming old man in the woods from “A Quiet Place,” Leon Russom.  Russom’s portrays a solid enough tough guy without really being challenged as such and that hurts Rando’s likeability, credibility, and survivability.  The grittiness, through the vessel of revenge, comes more from the Himalayan Sherpa with a grudge Siku by Tai Thai (“Killing Zoe”).  Walker Brandt (“Dante’s Peak”) rounds out the ensemble, whitewashing as a Sherpa sister to Siku.  With no real motive why she joins the expedition, Brandt’s character Kathleen dons the possible love interest role to Matt Cooper but that also doesn’t necessarily flesh out and secludes Kathleen’s contributions and presence as unnecessary.  Now, perhaps if she played a red shirt character, that would be another story. 

For a 30-year-old production, which still boggles my 40-year-old mind that it was only 1993, “The Primevals” footage was kept in great care by Charles Band and Full Moon Entertainment as it lies and waits to be restarted, and modernly restored, after it’s energizing battery, Director David Allen, suddenly dies.  The film embodies a show of perseverance by Band and company to not only have this homage of harrowing Earthbound sci-fi feature not be lost forever but also to posthumously honor David Allen and his legacy.  The stop-motion animation that was later added to the live action shots has near a seamless quality and is smoother, livelier than earlier examples of its anthropomorphic kind with stronger depth in the matte imagery to create the illusion of space and girth and puppeteering conjoined with more frames represent a sharper realism.  Granted, the Yeti and reptilian race still have the rad appearance of tangible 1990s toys but stop-motion has become a lost art that’s seeing a bit of a comeback in indie horror and sci-fi and it’s a welcome revert from the glossy, smoothed over, and ridiculously unnatural and impalpable computer-generated visual effects of certain films today. 

The epic arrives onto the home media format with a Full Moon Features single disc Blu-ray release.  A single-layered BD25 presented in a 1080p high definition and widescreen aspect ratio of anamorphic 1.78:1, “The Primevals” emerges generally seamless, especially since the work completed on the film spans over multiple decades.  However, what I suspect is the original 35mm print has been slightly smoothed over in the 2K processing and gives “The Primevals” a cleaner, sterile façade without the presence of natural grain.  Now, that’s not deeming the transfer as an enhanced flaw but rather just an observance as the image does favor the retro-adventure style of what the project aimed to accomplish.  Matte landscapes and miniaturized objects and characters meld and unify into one frame thanks to Randall Cook’s dimensional knowhow, the details on David Allen’s puppets, and a solidly uniform transfer of diffuse color, lower contrast, and cared for print.  The English language audio has two options, a Dolby Digital 2.0 and 5.1, both containing lossy clear, robust dialogue overtop a lively energetic and epic orchestra score by Charles Band’s brother, Richard Band.  Synchronized Foley assists in the anthropomorphic puppetry come to life and can be perceived instinctually through the side and rear channels.  There’s not a ton of LFE in what is more of one-sided octave above around the 4 or 5th.  Subtitles are available in English only.  One area that lacks substance in where one would think after 30-years of effort to get “The Primevals” out from the shadows is the special features.  Likely due to budget constraints, there is no showcasing of bons materials that structure around the struggles of finishing the film or a tribute to David Allen’s legacy and that greatly diminishes a portion of “The Primevals’” context value to audiences that may not be aware of the film’s historical troubles.  The only special feature listed under the static menu is the official trailer.  The standard physical release has little going for it too with a traditional Blu-ray Amaray casing sporting an epically rendered illustration of what to expect and a suitable homage to classic stop-motion adventure-creature celluloids.  Inside is a blue washed image of a Yeti pressed on the disc and there are no tangible inserts included.  Full Moon backdates the numerical order of catalogue releases and lists it as number 87.  The region free Blu-ray comes not rated and has a runtime 91 minutes. 

Last Rites: While its phenomenal to see that the beleaguered “The Primevals” didn’t let death and financial ruin didn’t stop Charles Band and steadfast backers from ponying up time and funds to see this project through to a long-awaited release, and such a marvel homage the film itself is to behold, there’s still a frustration to be had against the standard release that shows little interest in bonus featuring Davide Allen to celebrate the man, the myth, and the story’s ultimate creator. That material you’ll have to wait until 2025 when Full Moon releases the 3-Disc Collector’s Edition.

Yetis! Reptiles! “The Primevals” Lives Up To Its Title!

To Unearth a Lifesaving Plant, You Must Survive EVIL! “Yeti” reviewed! (High Flier Films / Digital Screener)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

When a medical research team scouring the Himalayan mountains for a miracle plant that can cure cancerous cells disappears without a trace, a second team, armed to the teeth, venture up the harsh terrain to locate them and recover any evidence of the mythical plant dubbed the Yeti plant.  They discover the research station has been abandoned with examination equipment and notes left behind.  With a storm brewing and the topography jamming their radio signals, the only thing to do is push themselves to setup a triangulated perimeter in order to boost the radio strength and comb the mountainside for the plant before hunkering down from the storm, but little do they know that they’re being hunted by a primordial and fabled creature, the Yeti, stalking prey to protect his uncharted, stuck in time territory.

As the third film to be titled “Abominable” in the last 15 years, this particular 2020 creature feature on the ever elusive and mysterious Himalayan Yeti is helmed by the 2018 released scurrying little feet of those mischievously cursed “Elves” director Jamaal Burden might not be at the top of your search engine results, but if you search “Yeti,” you’ll see High Flier FIlms aims to detach from the previous moniker inhabitants.  Burden’s modestly budgeted, internationally shot, sophomore film returns the filmmaker right back into the mythic subhuman category with yet another timeless storybook creature living in legends slithered within the shadowy veil from a script written by J.D. Ellis (“The 13th Friday”) that’s of indie caliber with a touch of jaw-ripping, blood-sprayed snowy carnage in this post-Holiday, winter-horrorland super beast feature.  “Yeti” is the latest in a long line of horror schlock produced by Justin Price, Khu, and Deanna Grace Congo under Pikchure Zero production company and is filled in St. Petersburg, Russia. 

Confronting opposite the terrible Yeti is a cast of alien talent without so much as a recognizable genre name or face to anchor “Yeti’s” marketing success, beginning with Katrina Mattson in her debut lead performance as a young scientific assistant to the terminally ill-fated Dr. Helen whose played by Seattle born Amy Gordon.  The body of dialogue or visual communication didn’t flesh out Mattson’s assistant’s strong yearning to support Dr. Helen’s obsession in rooting out the never before seen Yeti plant other than stating she will do anything to help the Glioblastomas-doomed doctor by whatever means possible.  The disconnect in dynamic between the two supposed friends is not well established and completely melts away faster than the Himalayan snow on a Summery day when the two barely reunite after separating from the abandoned research station.  They’re each accompanied by a couple of mercenaries hired to be an armguard, for a reason why scientists needed M16 assault rifle toting ex-special forces types is beyond me, but actors Robert Berlin and Brandon Grimes serve as such, adding a tinge of military machoism that could have been amped up more against a Jason Voorhees worthy disappear and reappear act Yeti with the given inherent superhuman strength. Berlin wildly over performs at times just spouting out his lines as if reading off an instruction manual. Plus, his character is poorly developed as a money hungry Yeti hunter with an extremely naïve and arrogant personality to the point of yelling in the Yeti’s face when the Yeti is clearly not dead or incapacitated.  Victims pile up with the remaining cast becoming Yeti chow, including supporting performances from Justin Prince Moy, Magdaln Smus, Victir Ackeev, J.D. Ellis, and with Timothy Schultz passing as the scraggily titular abominable snowman.   

The reason why Burden’s “Abominable” might not be numero uno on your search engine results shouldn’t be total surprise, but even “Yeti” may not produced the same desired outcome.  Aside from not having any grade of star power attached to it, audiences will be awkwardly thrusted right into a perplexing point in the story of dropping us right into complication with a rescue team entering the abandoned Himalayan station and, from then on, a straight forward, uncompelling path of infinite chase with the ball incessantly in the Yeti’s corner trounces on any kind of hope or resistance for survival.  The man-in-a-suit Yeti and makeup effects are not too bad as an admissible effort for an indie production and what’s even more impressive is how Burden felt confident enough to actually show the creature. There have been Yeti, bigfoot, sasquatch, etc., films aplenty of that stray away from displaying much of the hairy beast, only providing glimpses of the large feet, ape-like hands, or fanged teeth to represent a presence, but for “Yeti,” the creature is proudly displayed in all it’s full glory despite being half hairless with patchy spots of snow-stuck fur. Joe Castro, an effects guru for off-the-wall horror for the past three decades with credits including “Night of the Demons III” and “Blood Feast 2: All U Can Eat”, created the Yeti suit while also dishes out some surprisingly decent gore effects that have a real palpable face mangling fetish and so bloody great. On the other hand, the visual effects and props are an abomination in themselves with obvious toy guns and lack of continuity and cause and effect visual effect givens.

 

Is “Yeti” another filmic miss on the missing link or can there a slither of entertaining gore with creature lucidity amid a trite script? I do think the latter in Jamal Burden’s “Abominable” from High Flier Films slated for a January 11th DVD release in the United Kingdom. Producer Khu is also the director of photography, using the steady and handheld cams to capture a heap of medium and closeup shots without seizing the opportunity to get a lay of the actual snow covered forest which the characters are heaving hot breaths in the frozen air. Khu does exude the fact of actual frigid conditions with the use of a bluish tint in every outdoor scene. “Rave Party Massacre’s” Matt Jantzen composes a tense-situated, industrial epic score that doesn’t fit “Yeti’s” marginal story structure and can be nearly rave-like and repetitive at times while overpoweringly robust. Sound design is another favorable aspect in “Abominable’s” chaos with a discernible range and depth, especially when working with crunchy snow and a lot of bulky clothing that can be heard rustling when characters move around frantically. Gore scenes are laced nicely with gooey, gushy sounds that can be tangibly slimy. There were no bonus material included with the digital screener nor where there any bonus scenes during or after the credits. The great Yeti adaptation still eludes our ever curious eyes as “Yeti” quenches a only blood thirst through an over-trekked, over-defiled snowy path of the subhuman subgenre.