Primal Rage (1988)

The wait has been long for me, ever since I saw the cool poster and video art a thousand years ago, but Primal Rage is one of those movies that lives up to its hype. This is a damn goofy, silly, entertaining, gory and fast-paced piece of US-Italian horror with no pretentions of being to smart, but is aware of that.

Anyway, some doctor in brain-diseases makes experiments on a monkey and a journalist at university magazine is sneaking inside the lab, upsets the money - who breaks free, bites him, jumps thru a window and gets killed by a car. The journalist gets sick, infects his new girlfriend with a violent kiss on the throat and she infects some local hoodlums – and now it’s up to the friends to the first two infected to save the day!

Yeah, it’s more or less a simpler version of 28 Days Later, but with a nice eighties-soundtrack and a cool score by Claudio Simonetti. Did I mention the script by Umberto Lenzi? I’m not kidding you when I say it’s well-written, because it delivers what it’s suppose to deliver: entertainment. The dialogue is a bit corny (”Hey, you dildos!”), but fits fine with the style and feeling of the movie.

Vittorio Rambaldi, the son of the famous Carlo, is doing a very good job with the directing and makes the movie look a lot more bigger and more spectacular than the budget probably allowed in the first place. Like Umberto Lenzi’s Nightmare Beach it feels very American, but with a lot more visual class than a lot of the US movies in the same genre from that time.

And talking about Rambaldi, it’s father Rambaldi together with Alex Rambaldi who’s behind the impressive make-up and gore-effects. The red juice flows steadily without becoming a real splatter movie and it’s a lot of fun kills to look forward too. My favourite is not the goriest, a person with a three-nosed mask (the noses are formed like water taps) who’s getting his head crushed (I think, hard to see) and the blood starts flowing from all the noses! Most of the gore is during the big masquerade-party at the end (with a lot of fun and creative masks and dresses by the way), and even if it’s nothing big and extreme, I don’t think anyone will be disappointed.

Primal Rage is released uncut and in widescreen by Code Red, and I think you all should BUY it and nothing else. Support your local DVD-distributor, especially those that are small and often vulnerable.