Editorials
Genndy Tartakovsky’s “Primal”: Why Horror Fans Should Be Watching This Animated Series
Dinosaurs are back on the big screen and chomping through loads of cash thanks to the closer to the Jurassic World Trilogy, Dominion.
If you’re like me and you think there is a severe lack of dinosaur-themed awesomeness in our entertainment landscape you owe it to yourself to check out acclaimed animator Genndy Tartakovsky’s (Samurai Jack, Star Wars: The Clone Wars) magnum opus, Primal.
Currently streaming on Adult Swim and HBO Max, the series mixes brutal action, heart wrenching drama, and intense horror to tell a wordless saga of caveman Spear and his T-Rex friend Fang as they traverse an anachronistic prehistoric hellscape that is their home –and try to survive everything this hostile world throws at them.
With 10 episodes in the can at the moment and more coming this summer, Primal is some of the best television currently on the air. Despite it having near universal critical acclaim it hasn’t truly broken out yet. Not in my opinion at least. The horror fandom deserves to have this show on their watchlist because the genre elements are more than tertiary – they’re up front and center. Below are a handful of episodes sure to give horror fiends on the prowl for dinosaur-based carnage exactly what they want…
Episode 1: Spear and Fang
While not the most overtly horror laden, you can’t skip the introductory episode as it sets up the emotional core of the entire series. We meet the first half of our prehistoric duo, Spear, as he fishes from a rock in the middle of a river. The setting is serene, he is enjoying himself – smiling as his patience bares fruit. The tranquility is suddenly and violently broken as a massive Deinosuchus (big ass crocodile) lungs from the water right at Spear, who narrowly avoids the beast by jumping in the water.
This opening scene encapsulates the entire idea of the show in a nutshell: There is beauty here. There is even peace – but it is always one moment away from being torn to pieces. It never lasts.
Traversing the path home we get a sense of the wider world Spear inhabits before he hears the frightened cries of his wife. Running with all his might, Spear arrives only in time to see a pack of vicious horned T-Rexes, one of which devours his wife and child.
Spear pursues the gang of Rexes through the wild and happens upon another T-Rex, Fang. Fang is suffering a loss of her own thanks to the evil Rexes, and they must forge a bond if they’re going to survive the day.
This first episode is a harsh and unforgiving introduction to the show. Tartakovsky tells the audience there is no playing around in this world. This may be a cartoon, but it’s not fun for the whole family. Tragedy hits and hits hard.
“Spear and Fang” is a great balance of character introduction, emotional stakes, and kick-ass action.
Episode 4: Terror Under the Blood Moon
So much of Primal is like the coolest, most wickedly metal monster movie Hollywood never made. If Ray Harryhausen listened to Cannibal Corpse and dabbled in 2D animation, I imagine he would make something like Primal.
“Under the Blood Moon” opens with our duo running for their lives across open desert from a pack of dromaeosaurs (think raptors). Suddenly fearful, the pursuing beasts break away from the hunt. Spear and Fang find themselves in an eerie landscape of fog – the only landmarks to be found are huge stone monoliths with ominous skulls carved into them. A red moon rises, draping the sky with a crimson shroud. Things hunt under this moon and they aren’t mere dinosaurs.
This is the episode that most evokes old school monster movies. The use of red throughout is very similar to opening battle scene in Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula. The creatures that inhabit this alien land are even associated with the famous bloodsucker.
“Under the Blood Moon” is old school monster mayhem in a setting we’re not used to seeing it in, which is just one of the many ways Primal manages to be exciting and unique from episode to episode.
Episode 7: Plague of Madness
The entry is absolutely relentless. This is the zombie episode. To provide more details than that would be to spoil just how intense and impactful “Plague of Madness” is. The efficiency of storytelling here is flawless. These 30 minutes of animation hold everything that makes Primal such a compelling show. It’s brutal, action packed, filled with incredible money shots, yet it still manages to resonate with heartbreaking emotion.
The emotional core of the series is never not completely sincere. On paper Primal sounds like a fun, style over substance foray into action and violence yet Tartakovsky and his crew have far greater ambition than to just toss eye candy at the viewer. He wants to use everything in his arsenal to create something powerful and moving, which leads to the next episode.
Episode 8: Coven of the Damned
As I was saying, on paper Primal sounds like the enthusiastic ramblings of a little kid rattling off every cool idea that comes into his head. What if a caveman and a T-Rex fought prehistoric witches!?
That is exactly what “Coven of the Damned” provides, but with the nuance you should expect from this show at this point. Almost every episode of the series contains elements of emotional power and tragedy – this one being a standout. Yes, it is indeed about Spear and Fang going up against prehistoric witches, but the path that idea takes is unexpected. Don’t be surprised to find yourself swiping tears off your cheeks by the time the episode is over.
Episode 9: The Night Feeder
Now we’re back to pure, adrenaline fueled horror. Something unseen and seemingly supernatural, fast, and powerful is hunting in the forest. Nothing can escape it. It’s so fast and strong it absolutely annihilates everything it touches in a burst of blood and viscera. It goes without saying Spear and Fang are on edge.
“The Night Feeder” is survival horror with a dose of dark comedy tossed in for good measure. The on-edge jitters and fear that Spear and Fang feel as the episode ticks on is filled with tension, but it’s also kind of funny. One shot in particular holds on Fang as she slowly feels relaxed enough to try and sleep only to jolt awake at the slightest sound in the darkness beyond their camp. Good stuff.
I’ve been gushing over this show for over one thousand words now, so let me say that the reveal of exactly what the “Night Feeder” is was a tad disappointing. The episode does such a good job of establishing this utterly unstoppable killing machine only to reveal it as something rather…ordinary. Even so, it’s not a big enough issue to hurt the episode in any significant way.
There you have it, five horror-themed episode of Primal. When I stated that this series in one of the best shows currently on TV, I meant it. Few series at the moment are as unique and daring as Primal, let alone animated shows. Season 2 premieres on July 21st!
Due to a complex series of anthropological mishaps, the Wayans Brothers are a huge deal in Brazil. Around these parts, White Chicks is considered a national treasure by a lot of people, so it stands to reason that Brazilian audiences would continue to accompany the Wayans’ comedic output long after North America had stopped taking them seriously as comedic titans.
This is the only reason why I originally watched Michael Tiddes and Marlon Wayans’ 2013 horror spoof A Haunted House – appropriately known as “Paranormal Inactivity” in South America – despite having abandoned this kind of movie shortly after the excellent Scary Movie 3. However, to my complete and utter amazement, I found myself mostly enjoying this unhinged parody of Found Footage films almost as much as the iconic spoofs that spear-headed the genre during the 2000s. And with Paramount having recently announced a reboot of the Scary Movie franchise, I think this is the perfect time to revisit the divisive humor of A Haunted House and maybe figure out why this kind of film hasn’t been popular in a long time.
Before we had memes and internet personalities to make fun of movie tropes for free on the internet, parody movies had been entertaining audiences with meta-humor since the very dawn of cinema. And since the genre attracted large audiences without the need for a serious budget, it made sense for studios to encourage parodies of their own productions – which is precisely what happened with Miramax when they commissioned a parody of the Scream franchise, the original Scary Movie.
The unprecedented success of the spoof (especially overseas) led to a series of sequels, spin-offs and rip-offs that came along throughout the 2000s. While some of these were still quite funny (I have a soft spot for 2008’s Superhero Movie), they ended up flooding the market much like the Guitar Hero games that plagued video game stores during that same timeframe.
You could really confuse someone by editing this scene into Paranormal Activity.
Of course, that didn’t stop Tiddes and Marlon Wayans from wanting to make another spoof meant to lampoon a sub-genre that had been mostly overlooked by the Scary Movie series – namely the second wave of Found Footage films inspired by Paranormal Activity. Wayans actually had an easier time than usual funding the picture due to the project’s Found Footage presentation, with the format allowing for a lower budget without compromising box office appeal.
In the finished film, we’re presented with supposedly real footage recovered from the home of Malcom Johnson (Wayans). The recordings themselves depict a series of unexplainable events that begin to plague his home when Kisha Davis (Essence Atkins) decides to move in, with the couple slowly realizing that the difficulties of a shared life are no match for demonic shenanigans.
In practice, this means that viewers are subjected to a series of familiar scares subverted by wacky hijinks, with the flick featuring everything from a humorous recreation of the iconic fan-camera from Paranormal Activity 3 to bizarre dance numbers replacing Katy’s late-night trances from Oren Peli’s original movie.
Your enjoyment of these antics will obviously depend on how accepting you are of Wayans’ patented brand of crass comedy. From advanced potty humor to some exaggerated racial commentary – including a clever moment where Malcom actually attempts to move out of the titular haunted house because he’s not white enough to deal with the haunting – it’s not all that surprising that the flick wound up with a 10% rating on Rotten Tomatoes despite making a killing at the box office.
However, while this isn’t my preferred kind of humor, I think the inherent limitations of Found Footage ended up curtailing the usual excesses present in this kind of parody, with the filmmakers being forced to focus on character-based comedy and a smaller scale story. This is why I mostly appreciate the love-hate rapport between Kisha and Malcom even if it wouldn’t translate to a healthy relationship in real life.
Of course, the jokes themselves can also be pretty entertaining on their own, with cartoony gags like the ghost getting high with the protagonists (complete with smoke-filled invisible lungs) and a series of silly The Exorcist homages towards the end of the movie. The major issue here is that these legitimately funny and genre-specific jokes are often accompanied by repetitive attempts at low-brow humor that you could find in any other cheap comedy.
Not a good idea.
Not only are some of these painfully drawn out “jokes” incredibly unfunny, but they can also be remarkably offensive in some cases. There are some pretty insensitive allusions to sexual assault here, as well as a collection of secondary characters defined by negative racial stereotypes (even though I chuckled heartily when the Latina maid was revealed to have been faking her poor English the entire time).
Cinephiles often claim that increasingly sloppy writing led to audiences giving up on spoof movies, but the fact is that many of the more beloved examples of the genre contain some of the same issues as later films like A Haunted House – it’s just that we as an audience have (mostly) grown up and are now demanding more from our comedy. However, this isn’t the case everywhere, as – much like the Elves from Lord of the Rings – spoof movies never really died, they simply diminished.
A Haunted House made so much money that they immediately started working on a second one that released the following year (to even worse reviews), and the same team would later collaborate once again on yet another spoof, 50 Shades of Black. This kind of film clearly still exists and still makes a lot of money (especially here in Brazil), they just don’t have the same cultural impact that they used to in a pre-social-media-humor world.
At the end of the day, A Haunted House is no comedic masterpiece, failing to live up to the laugh-out-loud thrills of films like Scary Movie 3, but it’s also not the trainwreck that most critics made it out to be back in 2013. Comedy is extremely subjective, and while the raunchy humor behind this flick definitely isn’t for everyone, I still think that this satirical romp is mostly harmless fun that might entertain Found Footage fans that don’t take themselves too seriously.
4 New Horror Movies Releasing This Week Including ‘Late Night with the Devil’ at Home
‘Ready or Not’: Radio Silence Filmmakers Tease the “Absolute Banger” of a Sequel That’s Taking Shape
“We Built Every Creature” – ‘Alien: Romulus’ Goes Heavy on the Old School Practical Effects!
‘Sting’ Review – Throwback Creature Feature Entertains With an Impressive Practical Monster
‘Terrifier 3’: Filming Has Wrapped on Damien Leone’s Christmas Slasher Sequel!
You must be logged in to post a comment.