PRIMITIVE begins with an introduction to a man named Martin Blaine, played by Matt O’Neil. Blaine is a special effects artist who specializes in making monsters. He’s toiling away on his next flick, playing the monster, but it’s obvious he’s got problems. To begin with, the quality of his work is slipping and he doesn’t like the director. His girlfriend is in the movie business too, and she is working with him on this gig. Things finally take a turn for the worse when he spots the director getting too cozy with his chick. He takes his anger out on the director later on during an argument, decking the guy outright.

Later on, in his studio, the girlfriend enlightens us to the fact that Martin has anger management issues. He decides to seek help from a local psychologist, Dr. Stein, who is played by PHANTASM’s hero, Reggie Bannister. Dr. Stein’s chosen theraputic method is hypnosis, which takes a bizarre turn when Martin flips out as remembers a traumatic incident from his childhood.

Stein freaks out and slaps the man into consciousness. Martin awakens proclaiming he feels right as rain, more so than ever. Now the murders start. First, he dreams about his mother being killed in the woods by a monster. A monster that sort of resembles a mask he’s been working on. When news of her death reaches him, he fails to put two and two together, and returns to his hometown to attend his mother’s funeral.

During the course of his visit others are murdered by this mysterious creature. These slayings are not just random victims, these are people that have gotten on Martin’s bad side. Things crescendo to a scene where Martin is having sex with his girlfriend as the monster is slaughtering another victim. Except this time, Martin gets too aggressive and frightens her.
Cops rush in and they catch Martin with a knife in his hands, but he was just persuading her to hand it to him after she ran downstairs to get something to defend herself with. Innocent enough, right?

After the skirmish, the Sheriff informs Martin’s girlfriend just how strange Martin was as a young boy. How he could make things happen. And that he was responsible for killing his step-father, by supposedly willing the truck the man was driving into an accident.

If you hadn’t already made the connection, this movie has a lot more in common with FORBIDDEN PLANET (1956) than it resembles a killer Bigfoot movie. Which is what the trailer led me to believe the film was. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, mind you. I like sasquatch flicks, and I also like FORBIDDEN PLANET.
The concept of the Id gaining some kind of corporeal life and wreaking bloody havoc is an interesting concept, it’s just that in PRIMITIVE’s case I didn’t find it’s execution all that interesting.

The man-in-a-suit monster FX, created by Tom Devlin, is excellent and, as always, refreshing in a world where Hollywood prefers CG monsters to practically created ones. For those looking for gore, yes, there is some in the movie, but it’s not an all-out gorefest, if that’s what you’re looking for.