Primal (2010)

I'm glad I decided to watch this movie before checking out any of the reviews, because it seems that I'm the only person who liked this movie.  I know that can't be true, but every review I've seen has whined about how bad this movie is, how bad the acting was, how stupid the plot was, and how bad the special effects were, and I just don't get any of that.  Yes, I'm sure the special effects are bad compared to some movies with ten times the budget this one had, but they weren't so bad that they detracted from my enjoyment of the movie any.

I thought the acting was fine.  No one seemed to be reciting memorized lines (one of my biggest pet peeves in movies) and while the characters aren't very likable, that actually helps me enjoy the movie more as terrible things happen to them.  I also suppose the plot is kind of dumb if you analyze it too closely, but it's not THAT bad, and any movie that tries to give an explanation for its freaky events is going to wind up sounding kind of stupid when you put it under close analysis because things like this just don't happen in real life (we hope!) so until something like this actually happens, it's going to seem unrealistic.  I didn't even think it was that unrealistic.  I've seen far worse movies that don't even bother to try and explain what happens in the plot, so this one stands high above those movies.

All this defense of the plot and I haven't even told you what this movie is about yet.  Maybe if I tell you then you'll decide I was wrong and the plot really is stupid, who knows.  A group of friends are going on a road trip to check out some rock paintings that date back to prehistoric times.  We the audience have already seen a bunch of bad things happen in the area around these paintings in the opening sequence of the movie (which I thought was pretty cool) so we know bad things are going to happen.  One of the friends is a student so he really wants to study the paintings, which I suppose is his excuse for wanting to stay in the area long after terrible things have started happening.  One of the women takes a dip in a nearby pool filled with the nastiest water that you could not pay me enough to touch, and she winds up sick with a fever, getting sicker and sicker by the moment.  She becomes violent and attacks her friends, their vehicle is out of commission so they can't escape, and they have to try and escape by hiking through a nearby cave with an underground tunnel that just might hold the answers to what the hell is going on.

The movie is bloody, nasty, mean-spirited, and though there is some obvious CGI at the end, it's really not as bad as the other reviews are complaining about.  I thought this movie was a lot of icky fun, so I recommend it.