Primal Species (1996)

 

a.k.a Carnosaur 3: Primal Species

Director: Jonathan Winfrey

Screenplay: Rob Kerchner, Constantine Nasr and Scott Sandin

Cast: Scott Valentine as Col. Rance Higgins; Janet Gunn as Dr. Hodges; Rick Dean as Polchek; Anthony Peck as Gen. Pete Mercer; Rodger Halston as Sanders; Terri J. Vaughn as B.T. Coolidge; Billy Burnette as Furguson; Morgan Englund as Rossi; Stephen Lee as Sergeant; Justina Vail as Proudfoot; Cyril O'Reilly as Dolan; Abraham Gordon as Billings

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies) #193

 

The American Dinosaur Association monitored all Dinosaur action. Scenes depicting violence to dinosaurs were simulated. No dinosaur was harmed or mistreated during the making of this film.

Sometimes you want to watch something ridiculous, and here post-Jurassic Park (1993), New Horizons and the legendary producer/director Roger Corman thought "Let's make its equivalent to Aliens (1986) with soldiers versus dinosaurs". That comparison is more apt as, without realising this, as the film in the early days of British DVD was never promoted as such, this is actually the second sequel to Carnosaur (1993), Corman's attempt to capitalise on the megahit by Steven Spielberg, even getting a theatrical release in the United States. The sequels like this were straight-to-video, and baring some plot references to before, Primal Species exists as its own work, part action film crossed with part-low budget horror, part psychotronic production.

You can tell how broad the production knew it was because the initial main villain shows his evilness in his sunglasses and black leather jacket. Primal Species does have a curveball as, paced like a straight-to-video action film where this character and terrorists hijack a truck from soldiers, they do not get the uranium they were hoping for but ending up with reptiles. Why you would keep sleeping velociraptors and a T-Rex small enough to put in the back of a freezer truck I do not know, but the logic is not the concern in favour of dinosaurs versus soldiers, leaving a "Friday the 13th nightmare" as one of the cops call the resulting massacre before they get eaten too.

If there is one unintentional aspect to this film, it is both unfortunately but with historical curiosity to see if you could map out portrayals of masculinity and groups like the American military just in these types of forgotten genre films. It is fascinating to see, whilst with some discomfort, that the cops here in their little appearance do not come off well, anti-Arab sentiment reminding you this is definitely of the nineties, post First Gulf War, but also salient to how their public image has never be great for some decades later nor how the West's relationship with the Middle East has evolved (i.e. devolved) along the proceeding decades. The soldiers, as they are meant to be the heroes, are curious to see in terms of what was viewed of them by a screenplay for a straight-to-video film. Mostly as a result they are a group of (mostly) boring white cis-male grunts who only really work because, alongside the film being quite well paced, it manages to avoid being dull by making these character just make jokes and be goofballs all the time. One figure, Polcheck, is a literal walking goofball among them, the King Goofball to rule them all, a cherry on top of a paradox of characters so stereotypical they are interesting to watch, but also so unsympathetic macho meatheads. It is compelling to think a screenwriter depicted their military like this and though it made sense.

This is not going to be a political PC review - this is a film where their leader points out they have no hand-to-hand combat experience with dinosaurs, when asked to capture them alive in the dock location the production stays at. We are not going to spend this review pointing out how wrong it is that the characters are depicted as they, merely point it out as it is as absurd as having to sell that these reptiles initially need to be recovered back alive for medical benefits, as absurd as Deep Blue Sea (1999) was having sharks being made as intelligent as humans to research and cure Alzheimer's Disease. With a score that is sprightly, especially the horn section which is loud and proud, it is a deeply silly film, particularly as of a low budget, the dinosaurs are rubber puppets and possibly in some shots extras in dinosaur costumes.

This is a film with self awareness of the absurdity of the premise as already mentioned, but has a surprising amount of layers however when you start to pick apart what was once considered the ideal protagonists. Either this is, like other genre films, what people presumed of the idealised figures, or falling back on tropes for creating a film quickly, which I think in reality is where most of our cinema, television and other arts really comes to be how it is. This is why these films have unintentional humour, some intentional, but also archetypes which prove problematic as we watch many and see them, particularly in horror. It is the mid-nineties, so a female soldier takes umbrage to sexist macho soldiers, letting one win an arm wrestling contest to make him look bad, but these are still macho men who ogle the female scientist who explains the dinosaurs and even use homophobic language, the term "faggot", clearly needing to assure themselves of their masculinity all the time.

Even in terms of the female cast, as the soldiers are not invulnerable to dinosaurs and are picked off frequently, the only one who stays is that scientist, a stereotypical blonde horror lead who in herself adds a potentially questionable stereotype. I can only point to this and Deep Blue Sea, in a surprise comparison, but I wonder as I review films like this whether I will start to encounter an alternative version of the mad scientist, two brought up who are misbegotten figures driven to dabble in what humankind should do in emotional, medical goals. This particular one is contrasted by men who just think blowing the scaly bastards is the right direction and proven so. Whether this stereotype has any legs, or enough examples, to make this an actual archetype to document is to be seen, but this is another of those details which could not help but stand out least here.

This is all in mind that I seriously do not think the producers thought carefully about this. This is likely the case with many films like this, and if this is not an issue for someone, Primal Species does what it says on the tin and is actually enjoyable in its own dumb way. It does also raise some interesting thoughts, more light heartedly, considering that dinosaurs to our knowledge are extinct baring their modern ancestors, a species whose behaviour we have had to try to pattern out based on only their remains, theories and their closest inheritors. A student of palaeontology might look at you the viewer funnily for asking about a velociraptors's combat intelligence, but it would be funny to imagine what a student would offer on how a raptor could outthink a soldier.

Beyond this, this is b-movie fodder, specifically the kind that I did grow up a little within my childhood as, when DVDs suddenly became a huge thing and there were once DVD rental stores, Global Video our local one my parents rented films from, there were as much a glut of these b-movies coming into our home as well as new Hollywood films. It sadly shows its age in all I have talked about, but in terms of a film set around soldiers versus dinosaurs at the docks, only if you desired or imagined something significantly beyond this film's budget or too weird for Corman to produce would you have been disappointed. And honestly, whilst I really do not want to binge on these type of films continually, there is a merit to standing back and admitting most cinema is in this ballpark, not just horror, of so much produced cinema meant for a cheap thrill. These films offer a fascinating counterbalance to the pretentions of artistry.

Thankfully, this one did not exist in the era of irony either, as whilst it has many jokey characters, this is not one of those later films with obvious CGI monsters or deliberately made badly. Instead, surprisingly gore as well as it does not hide from the damage a T-Rex biting your arm off would cause, it feels sincerer and more entertaining as a result even if it is still tacky. I can appreciate a film which goes for the action with no padding a fake looking dinosaur or two that has plasticity, and it also says a lot even as a sequel it works by itself. Just accept that it is tawdry beforehand.