Review of Primitif

Primitif (1978)
5/10
Obscure cannibal film.
16 April 1999
Primitives is an extremely rare cannibal film filmed in Indonesia, and although it is a blatant take on cannibal ferox, it is unique in odd ways. The soundtrack is stolen Kraftwerk! Yes, I kid ye not, the film actually opens to "We are the robots"!

The "heroes" are Scooby-doo esque students that venture into the jungle to gain some hands-on experience with primitive culture to aid them in writing their thesis, and decide to go for gold by venturing even deeper into savage territory, in order to bring back experience they can really write about, and that they do. They take a raft down river, and when it hits a rock, their guide is killed and they are separated. Lost, they encounter hostile savages, who capture two of the students, while the other wanders around looking for them. The rest writes itself.

Primitives is generally a dull watch, but has its moments. In one scene for instance, a kiddie savage pee's on a captive student (Robert) from a height of 20 feet while a laughs! In one combat scene, A savage throws an axe at Robert, and he misses. The axe then boomerangs and strikes the savage in the throat, killing him! There are also some interesting animal combat scenes, like a leopard versus two crocodiles, and a huge snake versus a huge reptile.

Like other cannibal films, it has some token animal killing scenes, although they are mostly faked I'd say (but still yuk). It is also pretty gory in spots, the most notable being a scene where a savage gives birth, and licks the bloody baby clean! (Eskimos do this too, by the way, and they don't use diapers...) There's also an excellent spike trap scene which will make you howl laughing.

Still, unless you can't get enough of cannibal films, you may not appreciate it, but it may act as a good introduction to cannibal film to the uninitiated. (Though poor nonetheless)

Cannibal holocaust lite!
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