Label: Full Moon Features
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 90 Minutes 52 Seconds
Audio: English Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo, 5.1 Surround with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.78:1)
Director: David Allen
Cast: Billy Skudder, Juliet Mills, Kevin Mangold, Leon Russom, Richard Joseph Paul, Robert Cornthwaite, Tai Thai, Walker Brandt
The Primevals (1994/2024) is a stop-motion retro-fantasy-adventure film that was decades in the making, the original idea as pitched by FX wizard David Allen (The Howling, Puppet Master III) as a film titled Raiders of the Stone Ring in the 1960, before Allen brought it to the attention of Charles Band while working on the film Laserblast (1978). It was announced but never got beyond pre-production at that time, but it was finally greenlit in 1994 under the title The Primevals, Allen was able to complete principal photography with a 2-years of intensive stop-motion animation planned to be done after principal photography ended to complete the project. Well, the timing was off, Full Moon's distribution deal with Paramount abruptly ended, money got tight, and then Allen sadly died in 1999 after being diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, after having completed some but not all of the stop-motion special effects. The film was incomplete, and it sat on a shelf for many years, something fans of stop-motion might read about on a blog or on IMDB filmography, but for nearly 30 years it seemed it was destined to be a lost film, the London After Midnight of Full Moon cinema as it were. Years later FX friends of Allen's who had actually worked on the film, Chris Endicott and Kent Burton, went back to work to complete the film as best they could based on storyboards, using the original stop-motion creatures, aided by a crowd-funding campaign by Band, and sticking to true hand-rendered stop-motion and not digital animation, and here we are 30 years later - David Allen's magnum-opus has been completed and made available to fans who have long sought to see his final film completed.
The film starts deep in the Himalayas, where a group of Sherpas encounter and kill a towering humanoid creature. Its remains - it's remains end-up in the possession of Dr. Claire Collier (Juliet Mills, Beyond the Door), who believes it to be one of the legendary Yeti, but there are some anomalies about it, the brain that appears to have undergone some kind of surgery, and the creature seems to be a hybrid of various species that scientifically would seem impossible. The creature is a pretty obvious homage to Willis O'Brien's stop-motion creation for King Kong (1933), the way that the creature is unveiled to the public is straight from the original KK film, and there are further nods to that classic film throughout. Looking to investigate further she assembles a Himalayan expedition team comprised of herself, a former student Matt Connor (Richard Joseph Paul, Oblivion), big-game hunter Rondo Montana (Leon Russom, The Big Lebowski), colleague Kathleen Reidel (Walker Brandt, Dante's Peak), and a local Himalayan Sherpa (Tai Thai, Killing Zoe)to track down more of these incredible abominable snowmen.
This is a tasty pulpy adventure-fantasy in the vein of classics like The Lost World, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, Clash of the Titans, At the Earth's Core and even a bit of TV's Land of the Lost. The mountain trek reveals an unknown structure high atop the mountains, leading to an uncharted subterranean world where they encounter primitive hominid, ancient civilizations, hybrid creatures, and a race of lizard people with extraterrestrial origins. It's a wonderfully brisk and full-bodied adventure, chock full of gorgeous handmade stop-motion, glass matte painting and miniatures, as well as more modern digital matte painting and digital compositing. To my eyes the blend of the original Dave Allen stop-motion and newer stuff is pretty seamless, the footage shot in 1994 looks terrific, though I would assume that footage has undergone extensive restoration based on the workprint footage I have seen floating around on the internet through the years. We also get a pretty terrific fantasy-adventure orchestral score from composer Richard Band (Re-Animator), one of his more recent best, that accentuates all the sci-fi, fantasy and adventure themes quite nicely.
The cast is pretty decent as well, we have Juliet Mills as a former yeti-skeptic turned determined true believer, who perhaps dumps a bit too much exposition throughout the film, then Richard Joseph Paul as Matt her former student who has always believed in the existence of the yeti, the always sturdy Leon Russom as the pretty obvious Indiana Jones knock-off Rondo Montana, and Tai Thai as a sherpa out for revenge against the yeti after one killed his older brother at the start of the film. It's all pretty generic boilerplate stock characters for this type of story, and that's okay by me, stop-motion creature-features were never about their amazing stories, it was about the amazing stop-motion fantasy worlds they created, it was about the peculiar movie-magic that is specific to a stop-motion puppet being shot one frame at a time to make the impossible possible. The Primevals is a wonderful love-letter and tribute to artistry and imagination of David Allen and those who came before him like Willis O’Brien (King Kong) and Ray Harryhausen (Jason and the Argonauts). It might have a few plot holes along the way, but the stop-motion effects works is bonkers good, the final 30-minutes of it wall-to-wall stop-motion animation, and this monster-kid had a smile plastered on his face the whole time, I love this flick, I think it's a must-have for stop-motion enthusiasts and monster kids of all-ages, giving this a super-high recommendation.
Audio/Video: The Primevals (2023) arrives on region-free Blu-ray from Full Moon Features, presented in 100p HD framed in 1.78:1 widescreen. Principal photography for the shot on 35mm film in 1994 with the original David Allen stop-motion special effects also shot on film, until he passed. The more recently shot stop-motion looks like it was shot on digital, but regardless I though this 30 year in the making fantasy-adventure flick looked terrific. Live action and stop-motions shots are colorful, and relatively crisp and detailed with nice textures on the stop-motion miniatures, and the mix of old school glass matte painting and more modern digital matte paintings and digital compositing look wonderful.
Audio comes by way of lossy Doby Digital 2.0 stereo and 5.1 surround with optional English subtitles. Both racks are clean and well-balanced. I will always be displeased with Full Moon's decision to only include lossy audio on their releases, but for what it is it does the job just fine. I did not notice a ton of difference between the pair to be honest, but the Richard Band score and creature effects sound great.
I am only reviewing the standard release version of the film, the only extras is a 2-min Trailer, but there are deluxe edition that are loaded-up with content from Full Moon and Australia's Umbrella Entertainment that look pretty terrific. The single-disc release arrives in a standard keepcase with a single-sided sleeve of artwork, the artwork is terrific, while some Full Moon releases do not live up to their artwork this one actually does, and dare I say, exceeds it.
Special Features:
- Official 'The Primevals' Trailer. (2:12)
If you've got a hankering for some retro-style fantast-adventure along the lines of The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, The Valley of Gwangi, Clash of the Titans and Equinox this 30-years-in-the-making slice of stop-motion nirvana will certainly scratch that itch. Kudos to Full Moon and the friends of Dave Allen for making this a reality, you can see that it's truly a labor of love and a wonderful tribute to Allen's genius.
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Screenshots from the Full Moon Features Blu-ray:
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