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Episode 87: Our Best Bad Movie of 2025 Special, Primitive War
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It’s time, once again, to pick Our Favorite Bad Movie of the Year and it’s no secret; it’s Primitive War (2025). This low-budget, sci-fi actioner is directed by Luke Sparke and stars Jeremy Piven, Trisha Helfer and Ryan Kwanten. It centers around a war-worn unit of soldiers who are sent into the heart of the Vietnam to find out what happened to a lost unit and it turns out that the answers is… dinosaurs! Do we need to say more? Action packed and seriously full of dinosaurs, this film never relents in giving you what you want (dinosaurs) all while being competently made and deliciously stupid. And we’ll discuss some other hits from the year, so don’t miss out. Tune in!
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Transcript
Introducing the Theme: Best Bad Movie of 2025
00:00:26
Speaker
Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to your favorite bad movie podcast and our best bad movie of the year 2025 special.
00:00:40
Speaker
welcome to your favorite bad movie podcast and
00:00:47
Speaker
our best bad movie of the year twenty twenty five special Ged-zoop.
00:00:57
Speaker
Yes. Yes. We're
Meet the Hosts: Chris, Greg, and Anna
00:01:02
Speaker
your hosts. My name is Chris Anderson and with me as always i have the Leon to my baker. It's Mr. Greg Bossy. How are you Greg?
00:01:11
Speaker
Howdy sir. I am tired. i am alive and I am loving it. Yes, that's what we love to hear. And of course, speaking of love, we have the Sophia to my Sophia's dead husband, but I'm still alive. My wonderful wife, Anna.
00:01:30
Speaker
How are you, my dove? That's me. or Or I'm Sophia. Hello. Dasvidanya. No, that's goodbye. Hello, I'm doing fine. Fantastic.
00:01:44
Speaker
I think we're all doing
Revealing the Choice: Primitive War
00:01:45
Speaker
fine. We're all excited because we are, of course, talking about our best bad movie of the year, 2025. And our choice could be nothing but Primitive War.
00:01:56
Speaker
i mean, it could have been a lot of things, but we did choose Primitive War. It's true. Listeners, if you haven't seen Primitive War, here's just a ah short summary of the film to hold in your mind as we continue through the episode.
00:02:18
Speaker
A small squad of soldiers is sent deep into a valley in the jungles of Vietnam to find a crew of Green Berets that have gone missing. What do they find instead?
00:02:29
Speaker
Dinosaurs. Dinosaurs.
00:02:33
Speaker
Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's more or less the premise I've been telling people. They're like, well, Primitive War about. And it's like, yeah, it's like Vietnam. but But there's dinosaurs. Yeah. It's Vietnam. Yep. Yep. Yep.
00:02:48
Speaker
yep yep yep yep And it's straightforwardness, I think is what is the best part about this movie. Oh yes. I also like, it's not hiding the dinosaurs. We're not trying to be like, Ooh, are they there? Not to say, here's the dinosaurs, by the way. Yeah. One minutes in, you see a dinosaur track. You are off to the races.
00:03:11
Speaker
It's not like 65 with Adam Driver where you think you're going to watch a man fight dinosaurs with lasers, but what you get is you watch a man struggle with the death of his daughter via the little girl that he's carrying around with him who can't speak his language. And boy, do they have a hard time communicating in the movie about Adam Driver fighting dinosaurs with lasers.
00:03:32
Speaker
So thank you, Primitive War, for usurping 65.
00:03:38
Speaker
Now, I think out of the three of us, the way we came across it, I was just like started
Origin Story: From Novel to Screen
00:03:44
Speaker
looking around for good bad movies for yeah best bad movie 2025 sometime around just September.
00:03:50
Speaker
ah Just because nothing had like leapt to the front of the queue at that point. The only thing I knew at that point was War of the Worlds, which I haven't seen, but it was not too crazy about because it didn't just want to watch a movie of people in chairs on webcams.
00:04:05
Speaker
Yeah, I think War of the Worlds has its charms. If we ended up going with War of the Worlds, I would have been fine with it. But I'm glad to find something that I felt a little bit more personal attachment to. Yes, I agree.
00:04:21
Speaker
But I think, Anna, you were the first one amongst us to watch it. What was your initial dry reaction on watching Primitive War? I mean, it was a straightforwardness that really won me over. it It really it got to the fireworks factory of the premise, you know, in short order. And there's even a there's even a cold open, you know, that that teases the dinosaurs a little bit. There's actually three cold opens, I think, realistically. That's that's quite possible.
00:04:59
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's fair. um But I think it does have ah that that sort of, I don't know what I was going to say.
00:05:10
Speaker
Greg, yeah what was your first take on Primitive? So for me, I was lucky
Production Challenges and Strategies
00:05:16
Speaker
enough to watch this with someone else, which I didn't get to do very often. And so we were just having a just having a good time.
00:05:23
Speaker
You know what I mean? It was a perfect kind of movie because it's like two hours and 15 minutes long. So you kind of want somebody else there to have a little moment to discuss what's going on. But there's just fun little moments all throughout. Or you're just like, wow, they really did that. I can't believe they actually that. Yeah.
00:05:40
Speaker
Yeah. You just, you get done. You're like thumbs up guys, thumbs up, thumbs up guys gals and everybody else. Yeah. Yeah. My first initial impression on it was that it really did feel like a, a throwback to sort of the golden age of blockbuster action movies of the eighties and nineties, but without any sort of wink to it, without any sort of post ironic. yeah It was just what if you made a movie in that genre, in that style today?
00:06:07
Speaker
I hadn't thought about it that way. It's not a pastiche. It's making a movie again the way they don't make them anymore.
00:06:18
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. If that makes sense. Yeah. it feels like a piece of lost technology. It's like Greek fire, you know? Yeah. And it also, um yeah, to me, a lot of people, obviously, when they they see a dinosaur movie, they think Jurassic Park. But and to me, the most clear antecedent to this is going to be Predator.
00:06:38
Speaker
This is Predator with dinosaurs. Yeah, i could see that. And nails that assignment, I think. Yeah. Yeah.
00:06:48
Speaker
Well, you guys want to hear about the context I found out about primitive? I'd love to know. Yeah. Gotta know what's going on here.
00:06:59
Speaker
wish I had some context.
00:07:15
Speaker
The film, script director, actors on set What's going on on screen? I wanna hear some details Gossip, scandal, all that shit Can't imagine all good times
00:07:38
Speaker
And want to apologize to our listeners a little bit. I do have a little bit of a sore throat that I'm recovering from this week. I'm sorry, a little bit froggy, but I just had to get through to talk about primitive war.
00:07:49
Speaker
I couldn't wait any longer. If you want to make me feel better, you could go ahead and you can leave us to have five stars or maybe share us on your timeline, follow the podcast, find us on blue sky or ah Instagram, join our discord.
00:08:07
Speaker
Like follow, subscribe. All that would be fantastic. Primitive war came out October 3rd, 2025 late in the year. Very recently. Okay. At the time of our recording, I would say less than slightly more than two months ago.
00:08:22
Speaker
I'm assuming straight to streaming. It had a very brief theatrical run, probably just for contractual obligations. One of those things. like yeah You get booked in a hundred theaters. you know I would have loved to have been a person who went to one of those theaters and was like, primitive war. You know what primitive war is? Let's do two to primitive war. you know yeah This would be incredible on the big screen. This would be very, very good on a big screen.
00:08:49
Speaker
To see this on like IMAX with the like 4D where it's spritzing water at you. Wow. Yeah. yeah yeah yeah
00:08:59
Speaker
So it's ah directed by Luke spark tagline. This ain't no walk in the park. Boom. Yeah.
00:09:10
Speaker
Gauntlet thrown down. i mean, people are going to make the comparison. So you might as well go ahead and make the comparison. Mm-hmm. So in the year 2017, a writer named Ethan Pettis self-published his debut novel, Primitive War.
00:09:28
Speaker
It was later retitled Primitive War one Opiate Undertow. Huh. He would later go on to write The Primitive War Dispatches, The Hunting of Stalker Force, Primitive War two Animus Infernal,
00:09:47
Speaker
the primitive war dispatches to the Psalms of Zipitotec and the primitive war bestiary. Wow. So if you need, ah it's too late for stocking stuffers listeners, but, uh, these probably are amazing.
00:10:06
Speaker
Yeah, they must be. The primitive war bestiary is like an illustrated guide to primitive war. Hmm. Cool. So just five years after the publication of primitive war, one opiate undertow in February of 2022 spark films announced that it had secured the film license for primitive war and that Ethan Pettis would be working on the script.
00:10:31
Speaker
Spark films is is of course the production company owned by director Luke spark. Makes sense. Yeah. So Spark first encountered Primitive War back in 2021 when he was scrolling through social media and he saw an Indiegogo campaign for adapting Primitive War into a graphic novel.
00:10:53
Speaker
And he thought, hey, that looks cool. Yeah. And he tracked down Pettis and he pitched him on the idea of making a movie.
00:11:01
Speaker
Spark saw this as a big budget studio blockbuster and began trying to secure studio financing for it. But everyone that he pitched to give him the same response. They didn't want to compete with Jurassic Park, which is bizarre. I guess it's still going now that I think about it. Yeah. With it being sort of revived, like maybe yeah if it was 10 years ago or something.
00:11:24
Speaker
Yeah. ah But yeah, nobody wanted to be the Pepsi to Jurassic Park's Coke. Which is strange because Hollywood loves imitating things. Yeah. yeah the The whole thing kind of smell just smells weird.
00:11:39
Speaker
Maybe they thought it was a bridge too far. Maybe they thought it was a little too sci-fi channel. That was definitely what I was afraid of when I saw the trailer and I heard about it. That's fair. And if if there's no pedigree behind what he's doing as far as like what he's produced and stuff like that, I'm sure other people have been Even just saying that I'm not going to compete with Jurassic Park might be easier than saying, like, I don't know if you're the guy that can actually bring this to the big screen.
00:12:06
Speaker
Yeah, that's fair. ah So instead, Spark Films produced it themselves with a $7 million dollars budget. This movie only cost $7 million. dollars That's kind of nuts. It looks so good.
00:12:19
Speaker
looks better than any Marvel movie I've ever seen. Hands down. Yeah. Yeah.
00:12:28
Speaker
it is insane how good it looks. It's a, for a movie that's doing CGI dinosaurs, like they're, they're showing them, And they look good and they, so they look, they move realistically. Like, you know, it works.
00:12:45
Speaker
They're showing them fully. They're showing a lot of them. They're showing a lot of different kinds of them. Like, and it's just jam fucking packed with dinosaurs. And some of them are hairy, which is the thing that makes the computer models even more difficult because there's just more texture, more surface and stuff. So, yeah, yeah. They do give them feathers. They are like accurate dinosaurs.
00:13:08
Speaker
So who is Luke Spark? I'm sure you're wondering at this point. He's an Australian. Congratulations to Australia on winning your first ever best bad movie of the year award. Our hats off to you.
00:13:22
Speaker
That's right. He grew up in the industry in that his family owns and operates brigade film services, the largest supplier of military costumes and props for the film industry in the Southern hemisphere.
00:13:37
Speaker
That's really interesting. what a What a cool background. Yeah, they they just ah rent out large backlots of old military. Like if you were shooting you know anything in World War II and you're shooting it and in Australia, they'd be the guys to go to.
00:13:57
Speaker
How interesting. So he was able to start his career working in props and costumes. Obviously, like if you're renting out enough costumes from them, yeah he comes along as the costume manager. Yeah. He's included in the package.
00:14:12
Speaker
And he was able to learn through ah coming up through this side of the career enough about filmmaking to direct his first feature film, which was called Red Billabong in 2016. Okay. okay Primitive War is his seventh film.
00:14:28
Speaker
Oh, okay. I misinterestimated this person. what Had you thought more or less? Less. Ah, okay. ah Due to the budget being relatively constrained, Spark knew he wouldn't be able to construct large-scale puppets and animatronics, ah so almost all the dinosaurs were entirely digital.
00:14:51
Speaker
They were, however, able to shoot in the real jungle. They shot this along the Australian Gold Coast. and I think that really helps it a lot. Yes, it looks great. The locations of this are fantastic. Yeah.
00:15:04
Speaker
It only took about four weeks to shoot. wow You know, as is tradition on military pictures, the cast did develop that sort of real esprit de corps. I saw ah something written by the lead Ryan Quanton talking about like when one of the actors died and he was no longer in the rest of the shoot, they'd all be like, I miss my bro.
00:15:25
Speaker
You know, ah that's cool. So Spark opened his own visual effects house to take care of the dinosaur shots. He also served as the editor and the effects supervisor.
00:15:37
Speaker
And he would often act as a dinosaur in his offices to demonstrate what do he wanted the dinosaurs to be doing, which sounds really fun. Yeah, that's fantastic.
00:15:50
Speaker
Like, I remember hearing Ang Lee would do some of the motion capture for the Hulk when he was doing Hulk. was like, God, that sounds fun. That sounds really good.
00:16:01
Speaker
ah While it didn't make its production budget back at the box office, only taking in about one and a half million, it has hopefully developed enough of a cult following that we'll be seeing more. And hopefully, listeners, if you haven't seen Primitive War and you're listening to this episode, track down Primitive War. I imagine this will be what we end up showing in the Discord this month.
00:16:22
Speaker
ah Primitive War is fun and you should watch it. Yes. And hopefully we'll see some of this sequel material adapted. I'd love to see more. and the permit ofbu I would love to see this be a franchise.
00:16:37
Speaker
Yes, absolutely. There's one quote that spark gave in an interview with sci-fi.com that I think does a great job explaining the charms of primitive war. And I wanted to to quote it here.
00:16:51
Speaker
Imagine I'm doing whatever type of Australian accent he has. I hate when something is presented to you in a trailer and you go in thinking it was one thing, but then you come out going, it actually wasn't that much about that particular thing that I wanted it to be about.
00:17:07
Speaker
Yeah, we've seen that a lot in Hollywood and I've seen it a lot when I've gone to the cinemas. So for me, i was always like every five, seven minutes, let's make sure that there's a dinosaur doing something because that's what the people are here to see.
00:17:22
Speaker
The promise of the premise is what I always said during post-production. I think the promise of the premise is the one thing that Luke spark got 100% right this movie.
00:17:34
Speaker
Yeah. And it's, ah it's exactly what I was talking about with 65. I went in expecting to watch Adam driver shoot dinosaurs with lasers. But what I got to see was Adam driver struggle with his lost daughter. Well, he can't communicate with Ariana Goldblatt and who cares?
00:17:52
Speaker
Yeah, no, here you got guys in the U S army in Vietnam shooting guns at dinosaurs roughly one every 10 minutes. Yes.
00:18:04
Speaker
Other dinosaur movies of 2025. Wow. Okay. Let's say you were a dinosaur head. Obviously, you got Jurassic World Rebirth. I have no idea what's happening in Jurassic World.
00:18:17
Speaker
People are over dinosaurs in that the first one. ah You got Walking with Dinosaurs, which I believe is a BBC miniseries. Sure.
00:18:28
Speaker
But it might not be. I don't know what it is. And he got something called Jurassic games extinction, which seems to be something kind of like battle Royale meets virtual reality meets Jurassic park.
00:18:48
Speaker
Hmm. Okay. i mean, I don't understand Jurassic games. Oh, wow. Right. That makes sense. So I'm kind of curious about that one. I'm kind of curious. Yeah. Naturally. Yeah.
Dinosaur Drama: Key Scenes and Action
00:19:01
Speaker
Well, do you guys want to talk about the plot? Yeah. Yes. Yes. Of primitive work. Yes.
00:19:26
Speaker
Plot bumper, listen to me I'm gonna give you the plot summary Come on baby, here's the synopsis!
00:19:39
Speaker
Plot bumper, plot bumper!
00:19:51
Speaker
So we get a brief cold open of two green berets calling in to command for help before some unseen dinosaurs snatch him up. Yep.
00:20:02
Speaker
Then we cut to home base. Fortunate son blares on the soundtrack as our credits roll. I'm genuinely surprised that they have all the cliche Vietnam songs in here. i did not think they would be able to afford to do that.
00:20:19
Speaker
I guess maybe the price has gone down or maybe this is where they decided to put some of that $7 million. dollars Maybe it's worth it. It adds a nice touch to it. Like when you're watching this movie, you're like, wow, this is like actual music, not something that's supposed to sound like this. Yeah.
00:20:35
Speaker
It makes it feel like a real movie for sure. Yeah. Yeah. And I saw in an interview with ah Luke spark, he was saying like, I had that in there just as temporary music. I figured I'd choose something less cliched later, but when I had it, it was just, it was just too perfect. I couldn't put anything else there.
00:20:51
Speaker
yeah And I also looked it up. Do you know, which was the first Vietnam war fictional film that used a ah fortunate son on its soundtrack?
00:21:04
Speaker
No, have no idea. It was forest Gump. Really? Yeah. You would think of something like Platoon or July, but it was for, and I think that's why for our generation, it's such a definitive song of a war movie. yeah it Everybody watched Forrest Gump.
00:21:25
Speaker
Yeah. Like Forrest Gump is the lens through which we view the boomer experience. That's fair. But I think it really hits here. I do think it is the perfect choice. I agree.
00:21:38
Speaker
So a pair of CIA spooks meet up with a main man in charge, Colonel Jericho, played by Jeremy Piven. This guy. Jeremy Piven, our main name. I think, once again, if you're putting money somewhere, I think, Jeremy Piven, you're getting a lot of bang for your buck. Yes.
00:21:57
Speaker
Yeah. You know, this, I think he's doing the equivalent of a Kelsey grammar in money plane here. Sure. I could see that. What do you what do you all think of his performance in this?
00:22:09
Speaker
Do you buy him as who he is? I don't buy his accent work, but I don't buy any of their accent works. No, I'll give you that. I'll give you both of those things. I'll give you both of those things.
00:22:21
Speaker
So he's, he's a part of the whole, do you know what I mean? yeah yeah If he had an authentic accent, maybe he would have stood out for him. I feel like I can't tell. First off, I don't know whether or not I'm supposed to be against him or for him.
00:22:36
Speaker
You know what I mean? That's part of it, isn't it? Yep. Yep. And then also I feel like he doesn't understand how to hold himself like he's in the military. Yeah.
00:22:48
Speaker
like He's very much just like, let me get down in there and really show you. It's like, you can't, you're not after boot camp. You're not going to do this weird stuff with your shoulders. You need to have more posture. You need to be more rigid.
00:23:00
Speaker
Like he's very casual lot of the time. And i kind of love it, but it's just like, I feel like you just watched military movies or thought about it, but didn't really like do any kind of military stuff.
00:23:14
Speaker
I think also if you put it back in the context of those sort of like eighties golden age action movies, this kind of character would be more colorful. And I think that is also having them be a little bit loose lens ah to the idea of them being going outside a military structure, of being somewhat untrustworthy. I think that all fits together.
00:23:37
Speaker
Okay. You know, I think as a force, it works. I could see that. Now, the CAA, they want to know if the Green Berets found anything, but Jericho won't know until he finds the Green Berets.
00:23:51
Speaker
To find them, he'll need his best long-range reconnaissance patrol team, or LERP. Ah. Yes, that's what LERP means.
00:24:02
Speaker
I didn't bother to look that up. i I looked up Mike because I was like, why do they keep saying Mike? I've never heard that, but they do say that, which in certain contexts means minute, but in other contexts means other things. Their usage is almost always minute. Yeah.
00:24:16
Speaker
Yeah. his best LERP team is of course the vultures. The vultures are at that very moment, killing a bunch of Viet Cong and rescuing a pair of POWs from bamboo cage. So they're soldiers, but they're the type of soldiers that help people as well as kill.
00:24:37
Speaker
Hmm. Hmm. I mean, yeah, they're only engaging in light war crimes. Yeah, you know, they're they have a pet the dog scene, right? that But their dog is a prisoner of war.
00:24:53
Speaker
You get the vibe that they're not mad dog killer types, but they are good at what they do. And what they do is they kill people. ah A helicopter pilot picks them up and says that he's taking them to meet up with Jericho.
00:25:08
Speaker
Jericho introduces them to his pet tiger razor. He's the type of guy that has a pet tiger. This is is to hit the whole tiger speech that he gives this monologue about the tiger. You see this tiger here or whatever. It's just really fantastic.
00:25:23
Speaker
Apex predator till it meets the alpha dog. It's yeah, it's great stuff. The tiger's in the same kind of cage as the POW, isn't it? think so. Ironic, isn't it?
00:25:34
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Um, so Jericho tells them that they're going on another rescue mission. This time they need to find a squad of missing green berets.
00:25:46
Speaker
Uh, the green berets were investigating a mysterious Valley behind enemy lines. Why were they investigating it? That's classified. That's classified.
00:25:58
Speaker
Classified. So the team rests up and restocks for the mission and we get to meet our boys.
00:26:08
Speaker
we've already gotten to know sergeant baker he's a the leader he's serious he's competent he's the kind of guy that you want in charge he's a good boss he's to me ryan quanton is the name but that's just because he was on a different hbo show has jeremy piven been in a lot of movies he he had a He had a run of things early. I was a big Jeremy Piven fan in the 90s because he was in like gross point blank. There's a movie about assassins with Mark Wahlberg. And then he was also on the show Cupid as Cupid. I don't know if either of you watched the original iteration of Cupid, but I loved that show.
00:26:48
Speaker
He has his charms, but apparently he can be tough to work with is the rumor. Interesting. Interesting.
00:26:55
Speaker
I met him once at the video store. He came in with his best friend, John Cusack. Oh, wow. now Yeah. And then we had a deluxe edition of being John Malkovich on VHS that came with a Matryoshka doll of all the different characters in being John Malkovich. Yeah. And he picked it up and showed it to Cusack. He's like, what's this, Johnny?
00:27:19
Speaker
That's pretty great. Yeah. Okay. Other guys in ah the command. We got the second in command, Xavier. I think he's also a sergeant. He uses a machete.
00:27:30
Speaker
He doesn't do that much. You got the new guy, Leon. You got Miller. He's the type that reads the Bible. And you got his friend, Eli. He's the type of guy that steals the booze from the CIA spooks.
00:27:45
Speaker
Oh, yeah. You got Logan. He's the sniper who talks to himself. He's been in country too long and he's cracking. Yep. Yep. Looks a lot like Tim Robinson.
00:27:55
Speaker
Yes. I kept thinking that the entire time. And then I'd remind myself that that's not the case. Tim Robinson would have been great in this role. He would have.
00:28:07
Speaker
yeah And you got Keys, who is Logan's spotter. He's also like the hustler and the cool dude. He's the one that's got all the the the contraband, right?
00:28:19
Speaker
Yeah, he gets the chocolate bars and the porno. Yeah.
00:28:26
Speaker
So that's our squad. Nice, easy to understand archetypes that you can see interact with each other. Ready to go. The vultures are soon dropped at the last place anyone saw the missing green berets.
00:28:43
Speaker
at promptly 25 minutes into the movie, they find a dinosaur track. Boom. Fantastic. And a feather, right? Yeah, they also find a big feather.
00:28:55
Speaker
I do love that they're immediately just like, I've seen bird tracks like this. It's like, yes, let's let's go scientific. Let's associate the dinos with birds. This is great.
00:29:07
Speaker
Yeah, Leon theorizes that it might be the track of a cassowary. Mm-hmm. They also find some debris, including a map leading to a place labeled Research Station 4 and a notebook that reads, we lost Lewis last night.
00:29:23
Speaker
We're being hunted. That's the last thing you want to find in a notebook. Yeah. No, I wouldn't want to see that.
00:29:34
Speaker
They decide the play is to head to this research station. They figure the green beanies were going there. That's where they'll go. Maybe they'll run into them on the way. There you go. Before they can get too far, Baker is attacked by some kind of unseen creature that grabs him by the ankle and drags him through the woods.
00:29:53
Speaker
It's too dark. It's late at night. They can't tell. But the squad opens fire and sustained rifle fire is enough to scare it off, at least, but not kill it, which is obviously disturbing. Yeah.
00:30:05
Speaker
No one's quite sure what it was, but they're all pretty freaked out. Maybe it was a tiger. Maybe it was that cassowary. Who knows? Nearby, they're being tracked by a small crew of Russian soldiers who are shepherded through the jungle by a lady Viet Cong named Con Nen.
00:30:27
Speaker
One of the Russians gets ate by a dinosaur. Oh, boy. yeah Yep. These dinosaurs, they do eat people. Confirm. We've now seen it.
00:30:40
Speaker
They'll even eat a big, tough Russian.
00:30:45
Speaker
The vultures soon pick up the Green Berets trail, but unfortunately it leads into a cave. Once they are boxed in, they are swarmed by a large pack of Dinonychus's a small but vicious dinosaur that they call murder turkeys.
00:31:04
Speaker
It's, it's a really good scene because the all the gun flashing is basically how you'd and see the dinosaur. So it's just these yeah quick bursts and it the dinosaur is always like, and like ready to go teeth bared and stuff. And it's always just like, good, good.
00:31:20
Speaker
Yeah. Spark does a lot with like natural or, or, uh, diegetic light sources yeah that I think really add a lot to his action scenes. And that I think also helped to sell the CGI. Cause you're just seeing it for bursts, you know? So it's hard to like, you don't, you don't have to animate it and show it doing something as much. And it helps to keep that realism there.
00:31:41
Speaker
And also he's the way that he's designed to the dinosaurs. They all are sort of very well camouflaged in their surroundings, which I think also makes them easier to like fudge. You know what I mean?
00:31:55
Speaker
He's made a lot of smart decisions here. Very smart decisions. Uh, and this is a very exciting scene. Obviously it's like wave after wave of these like dinosaurs, the size of medium dogs, and they're gunning them down and more just keep on coming.
00:32:10
Speaker
Uh, Xavier calls out, we walked into a fucking nightmare uh, they run and Baker and Leon get separated from the rest of the vultures.
00:32:21
Speaker
So now it's just the Sarge and the young guy. And then all the middle guys are off in the other party. Xavier leads Keys, Miller, and Logan out of the cave only for the murder turkeys to follow them.
00:32:34
Speaker
But the murder turkeys get chased off by an even bigger problem, a Tyrannosaurus Rex. We see a Tyrannosaurus Rex 40 minutes into the movie. Yes. Yeah.
00:32:48
Speaker
Luckily, the vultures are able to slip away without the Tyrannosaurus Rex noticing them. But meanwhile, Baker and Leon stumble upon a sleeping Tyrannosaurus Rex, one that we will later learn is the mate of the Tyrannosaurus Rex that was attacking the vultures. This one has stayed home with the babies.
00:33:09
Speaker
The babies spot Leon and Baker, and the sleeper wakens and chases them through the jungle. The babies are very cute. Yes. And the chase happens largely off camera.
00:33:22
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Which is a pretty hilarious moment to me. It's like, we better run! Cut to the other people. was just like, okay, perfect. Yeah, but then they cut back and they're still running. you know oh yeah. ah Bullets barely even bother the hulking behemoth. They come to a cliff over a river and they decide to jump off the cliff into the river below. And the T-Rex sort of stumbles in after them accidentally.
00:33:50
Speaker
The boys swim to shore. And a blonde woman emerges from the nearby tree line. She's Sophia. And she has a lot of exposition to bang out.
00:34:01
Speaker
She does. She sure does. She is m Exposition. Yes. She does a great job with it. this yeah this yeah This is our, this is our other name. Cause you mentioned that pivot is the name, but Helfer is also a name.
00:34:16
Speaker
Yeah. Where do I know Helfer from? You know, Trisha Helfer from Battlestar Galactica. The reboot. Not familiar. did Was she Starbuck?
00:34:26
Speaker
She was one of the Cylons. Oh, okay. Sorry if that's a spoiler. I don't think it is though. if If you were waiting for Battlestar Galactica until now and you know what a Zion is and you don't know that Patricia Elfer is one, I don't know what to do for you, man. You got to get your life together. She's ah she's she's interesting in this.
00:34:47
Speaker
She is. I want to say at this point, we've met now two thirds of the female characters in this film. yeah yeah And I kind of like the way that they handled female characters in this film because it would have been very easy to just entirely omit them.
00:35:03
Speaker
And also in very easy to have one of them like, oh, I need to rip off a part of my shirt to make a tourniquet. We never have any of that. The female person, this have just as much agency, but it also isn't shoehorning them in there. They're very organically, but they are there in ways where they could have been notably absent. Yeah. So I think this does a fine job of walking that line.
00:35:31
Speaker
And she's most of this movie strung out on morphine withdrawal. Yeah. Yes. Which I think makes her character interesting and and keeps her from being, even though she is such a beautiful woman from becoming a sexual object, which I think wouldn't have played well in the tone of this film. No.
00:35:52
Speaker
So Sophia explains first the family dynamics of T-Rexes. It seems that this one that fell off the cliff is going to try and return to its mate because it'll be nervous about leaving the babies alone.
00:36:04
Speaker
I love this concept for the T-Rex. Yes. I love the T-Rex as mated couples. And she also tells Baker and Leon that she has a lab nearby and it should offer them a place to lie low.
00:36:21
Speaker
We get a little montage of both groups hiking to the sound of Credence Clearwater Revival's Run Through the Jungle, our second CCR song of the soundtrack. This montage is really good.
00:36:35
Speaker
Yes. yeah It's like all the moments that you want to see. And there's like funny moments with the dinosaurs or just like dinosaur moments. And then other moments where it's like, yeah, we're walking and there's dinosaurs over there, but they're doing their thing and we're doing our thing and we're both doing our things near each other and it's fine.
00:36:54
Speaker
yes Yeah. It's really nice. Yeah. You do get to see them just sort of hike by a bunch of herbivores. and That's cool. So once Sophia gets the fellows back in the lab, we learn that she was a paleontologist brought here by a Russian general named Borodin to study the dinosaurs he accidentally summoned through a wormhole that he created with his experimental Large Hadron Collider.
00:37:21
Speaker
I love that this is what the actual premise is for some reason. Yeah, love I love that it's a mad Soviet general. yeah It's not just that we have dinosaurs in Vietnam. It's that they're brought there via a wormhole via a Russian specialist who's doing experiments in Vietnam.
00:37:43
Speaker
so yeah So dangerous you don't even want to do in your own country. And poor Vietnam has to pay the price as usual. And I like that. This movie is very clear that the Vietnamese people are the people paying the price for the Vietnam war I like that. It somehow threaded with the needle of being, having good history. Yeah.
00:38:06
Speaker
So Sophia is the only one left at the lab because Borden had them all killed to keep this quiet that he accidentally summoned to dinosaurs. Yeah. Since then, all she's done is hide, study dinosaurs, and shoot morphine. It's not that bad. bad No, it could be worse.
00:38:25
Speaker
You know, i would i would get tired of having to cook and do the dishes all the time. I'd want to order out.
00:38:34
Speaker
Baker calls into Jericho on the radio and says he wants an extraction for the vultures, and he's bringing a commie scientist back home with him. Something that Jericho has mixed feelings about.
00:38:48
Speaker
But first things first, Baker has to reunite with the rest of the vultures. He's not leaving his men behind.
00:38:55
Speaker
The other vultures are having their own problems. Specifically, those Russians that were tailing them have found them. And they've started shooting. They're in the middle of a field.
00:39:09
Speaker
Keyes, our favorite conman type soldier, takes a bullet to the thigh. Then, if things couldn't get any worse... They get attacked by a flock of 20 foot tall flying dinosaurs called Quetzalcoatlus.
00:39:24
Speaker
They're so cool. They are. cool They have long beaks. They have long worm-like tongues. They pull out a dude's intestines like they're spaghetti.
00:39:35
Speaker
Yep. Yep. They kill Ruski and everybody runs into the jungle. Luckily, the sound of gunfire did alert Baker and Leon and Sophia to their location. So the vulture squad is now reunited.
00:39:51
Speaker
The gang is back. Yes. The bad news is it also drew the attention of even more dinosaurs. The gang is running. Yes. Time to get the F and Jeff out of there. That's right.
00:40:05
Speaker
One of the dinosaurs that attacks is one of the big raptors. These guys are probably roughly the size of, I want to say a car. And they drag Keys away and it mauls Keys.
00:40:21
Speaker
But Keys is able to fend him off by stabbing it in the eyeball with his big army knife. So Keys has marked the one that has killed him. And we will see this raptor with a big army knife in its eye socket again throughout the film. It's like our main antagonist dinosaur. Once again, such a smart call. Yep.
00:40:42
Speaker
And obviously, yeah, you have Sophia at some point being like, the raptors are the most dangerous. They're hunting packs. There's six of them. And then 19 of them show up.
00:40:52
Speaker
Yeah, there were more than six. I was wrong.
00:40:59
Speaker
The vultures find keys and he is incredibly jacked up. His guts are falling out. He's losing a lot of blood. Baker orders them to build a stretcher. They're going to get him back to Sophia's lab to patch him up while they wait for their evac.
00:41:17
Speaker
While they're there, Sophia drops another expository bombshell. General Borden has almost finished building a second large Hadron Collider, and it's nearby.
00:41:29
Speaker
m dun, dun.
00:41:36
Speaker
Baker knows that this technology is too dangerous to fall into commie hands, perhaps even into anyone's hands. But before he could talk to the vultures about it, the research station gets sieged by the pack of velociraptors.
00:41:51
Speaker
Sophia says she has a boat nearby that they can use to escape if any of them can fix the motor. Keys knows he isn't going to make it anyway, and he's just going to slow the rest of them down. So Logan tearfully lights him one last cigarette and Keys blows himself up with a couple of grenades to cover their escape.
00:42:19
Speaker
the first one to go as a team so far? Yes. Wow. Yeah, we've had two Russians die. Right, right. They're not, they're not, yeah, they're not our team. Okay, right.
00:42:31
Speaker
Soon the vultures are boating upriver. Baker tells them they have to stop Borden's new Hadron Collider because no man should have all that power. No.
00:42:42
Speaker
The vultures reluctantly agree, even cowardly Eli. And once they learn that they can't just call in an airstrike, they have to go in and shut it down first.
00:42:55
Speaker
They're still, you know, they got to do what they got to do. They run into some Spinosauruses that eat some nearby Triceratops. And Logan almost kills himself.
00:43:08
Speaker
Almost blows the top of his head off with a sniper rifle. But Baker says, we still need you, buddy. Yeah. Yeah. He's having a rough time. He is. It's understandable. How do we feel about ah Logan's depiction of mental illness in this filming and and suicide hour?
00:43:26
Speaker
I mean, it's broad. It's a broad movie. It's fine. Yeah. Yeah, I don't feel like it's particularly nuanced, but I didn't feel like there was anything particularly traumatic. Yeah. no It was, you know, it was fine. Yeah.
00:43:41
Speaker
It also doesn't seem to take the concept too lightly or just be like, oh, this is just a moment. It's like people genuinely don't want him to do that. You know, that's that's a pretty, people are stopping it. That's good.
00:43:53
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Like this is... this is not problematic for me as someone who like takes suicide in media is like something that I, feel passionate about, you know, I was like, yeah, no, this is good. They're recognizing that this is coming from a place. He knows that he is suffering and that he is in danger. You know, he's still a a character that is loved and respected by the people around him, you know? Yeah.
00:44:21
Speaker
Yeah. So they sail on until sunset. The vultures find a bunch of dead VC on the floor of a misty jungle. Then they get swarmed by murder turkeys.
00:44:34
Speaker
They're coming from every angle. They're in the trees with the mist. They can't see them coming. And the vultures, they're getting overwhelmed. So Logan steps up to the plate and he lures them all away into the jungle, yelling and screaming, come and get me, firing his guns into the air.
00:44:52
Speaker
only at the last minute to shoot himself in the head and make a feast for the murder turkeys so that his boys can escape. R.I.P. Logan.
00:45:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:09
Speaker
The vultures press on and they soon find the Russian base. They call in their location to Jericho and then they raid the place. They go on a little sneak mission. It's fun to see a different kind of action going on in this movie.
00:45:23
Speaker
who Coincidentally, on the other side of the base, a Russian grunt has killed one of the baby T-Rex.
00:45:34
Speaker
Borodin is on the base and also Kong Nan has brought back the Russian troops and the Russian troops are up in the mix. Also, at some point, they have radioed back to Piven, and they're like, there are fucking dinosaurs in here. And he's like, whatever. And then there's like a scene later where Piven's talking with people. He's like, do you think it really could be dinosaurs? i Do you think there are dinosaurs in there? And other people like, I don't know. I mean, does he seem like a liar?
00:45:59
Speaker
it was such an interesting little of weird scene where people were like, could it really be dinosaurs? mean, it wouldn't make sense, but I don't know why he would say it It would be a weird thing to say Yeah it would be very weird Like they're fucking dinosaurs in here You'd be like Are you What's going on Well ah Let's see So yeah Borodin is there And he knows what the baby T-Rex means. He knows that mama is going to be pissed. And indeed, mama T-Rex shows up and she starts wrecking shit. Yes. Rocking over trucks, eating Russian soldiers in one bite. Bullets just bouncing off.
00:46:46
Speaker
It's awesome. And then soon her mate shows up and you see them nuzzle each other in a surprisingly tender moment. It's a beautiful little scene.
00:46:58
Speaker
It was really great. And, and then they start wrecking shit because they're both looking for vengeance for their murdered child. And they destroy basically the entire Russian army. It's fantastic.
00:47:13
Speaker
And the vultures use this chaos to infiltrate the base. They split up to start placing explosives everywhere. Miller, our Bible thumper, he gets jumped by Kong Nen.
00:47:24
Speaker
And she like stabs him. And as he bleeds out, he asks one last time for forgiveness for all the people that he has killed. And then they both get blown up in the sort of exploding chaos of the base being destroyed.
00:47:38
Speaker
Yeah, i think I think he specifically killed her family. like i wonder I'll bet this stuff is more in the book. That would make sense. I'm not sure if she's there's a Vietnamese woman at the beginning who tells an American that a demon came out of the jungle and killed her husband.
00:47:59
Speaker
And I have a theory. i think if if if it's the same woman... But I have a theory that the demon, that the demons are not dinosaurs, but Americans.
00:48:13
Speaker
Hmm. I'm going to say because Kong Nen was hooked up with the Russians already out in the deep of the jungle at that point. I don't think she would be the same woman that was in that village that was captured. Yeah. yeah to That's true.
00:48:30
Speaker
But still the demons could be Americans. That is for sure. uh, Sophia and some of the vultures find the control room and they deactivate the collider.
00:48:41
Speaker
Then Borden shows up and, he gets shot for his trouble. Uh, and then he disappears as literally dozens of raptors show up, including the one that he's stabbed in the eye.
00:48:54
Speaker
the vultures run from the horde as, Borden tries to restart the collider, but gets ah killed by a dinosaur.
00:49:05
Speaker
Eli, he gets eaten. RIP to Eli.
00:49:14
Speaker
Baker tells his remaining men to get to the chopper as he fights off Knifeye and the remaining raptors. ah RIP to Baker. RIP to Baker.
00:49:28
Speaker
It's an interesting moment because I was like, he's going to get out. No, he's not going to. He's not going to get out. No, he's not going to get out. And then it's not like a, Hey, I made it out guys. It's like, no, no, he, he straight up dies. He seems to be dead.
00:49:43
Speaker
Jericho shows up with a few helicopters and he's desperate to try to capture the collider. But as he and the vultures are swarmed by vicious raptors and the collider explodes around him, they declare a strategic retreat.
00:49:58
Speaker
The only surviving vultures are Leon and Xavier.
00:50:03
Speaker
On the way back, Jericho gets a call from base saying that dinosaurs have started showing up there. There's no way to keep this quiet. No. The credits roll over stock footage of the Vietnam War with dinosaurs edited in.
00:50:18
Speaker
the It's great. It's pretty good. Yeah. Yeah. So much fun. Final thoughts, five-star ratings. How do you guys feel about Primitive War?
00:50:31
Speaker
Greg, kick us off. Sure. ah I think that this is a pretty watchable film. I think if it's got any real flaws to it, it's it's two hours and 15 minutes long.
00:50:41
Speaker
It could be shorter. I think it's got three openings, so I think you just get rid of the first two. Maybe you lose a little bit there, but I think just starting with introducing the crew, like There's no real valuable information added in that first 15 minutes. There's just a lot of intrigue.
00:50:57
Speaker
And so I think just doing that would have just spiced it up a little bit. And then they get a little too hung up on the opium thing. It's a lot of like, she's trying to get drugs, but we need the drugs to save this guy who's clearly dying.
00:51:09
Speaker
And like that could have just been tightened up a little bit. And then I think that would have made it a real tight little film. um But I think it's really watchable. I just think there's some like down moments. You're going to want to watch it with somebody else. I'm going to give it a four. Okay.
00:51:23
Speaker
And... You know, I never considered how weird it is because the premise of they go in to save a platoon in Vietnam and it turns out that that platoon was taken down by dinosaurs is a pretty weird idea, except not now anymore.
00:51:43
Speaker
You know what mean? Like if this had been an original premise, it would have been like that's crazy. But right now it's like, oh, that's sort of like Predator meets Jurassic Park. and And so I'll say, I'll say two, I guess, for weirdness. that's it's It's a good time. get Get some friends, get something to drink or not, or whatever, chips, and just sit down and have yourself a good time because the movie wants to deliver on something you want to see. And it's going to do that.
00:52:14
Speaker
How about you, Anna? What do you think? ah Pretty similar. i would say four and a half for watchability. I watched it twice by myself.
00:52:25
Speaker
um And as for weirdness, yeah, I was thinking along the same lines as Greg, that ah that it it's weird in isolation, but not not in context. um So I would say two.
00:52:45
Speaker
Yeah, i'm I'm with the panel on this one. I'm going to give it four and a half stars, and I'm only knocking it down that half star because of the running time. My suggestion for cut would be get rid of the CIA spooks. I don't think you need them. Get rid of when ah the vultures get to Sophia's or when Leonon Baker get to Sophia's lab, then leave to go back to meet the vultures, then go back to Sophia's lab. Just have them all get to Sophia's lab. And boom, you've saved yourself 15 minutes there. You've got it down under the two hour mark. I think.
00:53:16
Speaker
ah go But yeah, it does keep moving. It does look fantastic. I think it is just a great popcorn movie. And for weirdness, I also gave it it to you just because I think it is weird that it does deliver. You know, it does. yeah something Like anytime I talk to frequent guests of the show, Matt Finnegan, about modern movies,
00:53:40
Speaker
action genre filmmaking he's like it's like they don't know how to make movies anymore and this is one where this guy clearly knows how to make the kind of movie that he is looking for i i would be fascinated to hear his thoughts on primitive work yeah with that do you guys want to uh move on to act three of the game of the show yes yeah yes yeah All right.
00:54:07
Speaker
That means we're going to be heading into a brand new segment just for our 2025.
Reflecting on 2025 Cinema
00:54:16
Speaker
It's time to talk about some of the movies we watched this year in another year in the bag.
00:54:25
Speaker
Another year in the bag.
00:54:29
Speaker
Another year in the bag. and another year gone. Another year gone. Another year in the bag. hey here's some films we watched. Another year in the bag.
00:54:40
Speaker
out!
00:54:45
Speaker
That's right. It's another year in the bag. We wanted to just talk a little bit about some other movies that we watched this year. ah Just a ah little round table. ah Who wants to start? Anybody want to kick us off with movies they watched this year?
00:55:01
Speaker
Other 2025 movies, right? Yeah, 2025. Oh, okay. I can i can go first. Sure. Well, I was just gonna talk about three other movies that I watched.
00:55:15
Speaker
First one I want to talk about was reflections in a dead diamond. Oh yes. I need to see this. Yes. Uh, it was directed by Bruno Forzini and Helen Kete. It's a French spy movie.
00:55:28
Speaker
Um, and i if someone wanted to come on the show and talk about it, I would love to talk about it. I thought it was too good to call a bad movie. Yeah. I had a sense that it might be that kind of a thing.
00:55:40
Speaker
I think it it we could work it into the rubric, but I feel like that it's... ah it is just a fantastic thing. It's, I'm not quite sure what happens to this movie, but I loved literally every frame of it.
00:55:54
Speaker
It was the vibes based watch of the year. ah It has elements of Mario Bava and Wes Anderson and Fumetti comics and Ryan DePama's Mission Impossible and the Prisoner.
00:56:12
Speaker
And it just looks like absolutely gorgeous. It's sort of like if someone made an entire movie out of the opening credit sequence of gold finger.
00:56:24
Speaker
yeah.
00:56:27
Speaker
Uh, also, ah my runner up for best vibes based watching the movie is going to be him, which I thought was, a oh you like this movie. Yeah. I thought i I liked it, but I thought it was definitely vibes. You definitely could not be going in for plot.
00:56:45
Speaker
So i didn't I didn't see it. I didn't know a lot about it. I just know a lot of people did not like the movie. I think if you went in for something more plot driven, I think you wouldn't. Okay. Okay.
00:56:56
Speaker
ah I did want to talk about War of the Worlds, directed by Rich Lee. It was sort of the obvious choice for this year for Best Bad Movie, which did make it less appealing for us. We didn't want to try and shine a light on something less seen.
00:57:09
Speaker
i don't think any of us who watched it did fall in love with it. think we've all seen something with this sort of Zoom call technical conceit before. So that part isn't as as shocking if you have seen it in another movie. Screen core is the name for the genre. What was it? Okay. Yeah. Screen core.
00:57:29
Speaker
Screen core. That's fine. Yeah. It's iss basically, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think it does have a lot of charms. If anybody fell in love with it and they want to come talk about it, I'd love to talk about it. If we hadn't found primitive war and we went with it, I think it would have been a decent choice, but it just, it didn't ignite that flame in me the same way.
00:57:50
Speaker
And I also just wanted to mention one other movie, which was MMA cop. No, I checked out a lot micro budget movies out of London.
00:58:02
Speaker
I found like a small vein of those. i think there's some sort of micro budget action scene going on there. Uh, MMA cop was the most interesting one of those that I watched.
00:58:14
Speaker
It definitely does something that a lot of great bad movies do, which is it convinced me that everyone involved with it is very stupid. Hmm. but The only reason why I didn't push it harder ah in terms of like front runner when I was trying to think of something was that it does feature several shockingly graphic scenes of sexual torture. no oh which sort of made the tone a little bit off.
00:58:42
Speaker
ah But I still think that there's something gestating in this scene. My prediction is somewhere in the next five years, we're going to see something really interesting come out of this UK low budget action scene. If I keep an eye on it, I'll find something interesting.
00:58:56
Speaker
Other titles that I saw from there, there was something called bikini nuns okay featured the nuns did not wear bikinis nearly as often as you might think. And one that I didn't watch, but I saw the title was called Jeff fakin, which is about a British guy infiltrating a Jamaican gang.
00:59:14
Speaker
Okay.
00:59:18
Speaker
So Anna, what movies did you watch in 2025? Well, I watched a lot of movies in 2025. I don't know. Gosh, I don't know what my final tally will be. i think at this point it's 350. Wow. ah Some of them have been short films, but I watched um not a 2025 movie, but I watched Red Rooms last New Year's Eve and it like broke something open where suddenly I could watch Suddenly I could watch a movie a day. It's just never been something that I've done before. Anyway, so I watched a lot of movies this year, but I was surprised at how few of them were actually 2025.
01:00:07
Speaker
But I can mention I watched a couple of animated shorts. Mm-hmm. Lotus land by Luna Davies and pow by Joey Clift. They're both available on YouTube. Um,
01:00:26
Speaker
They're you know very different animation styles. Pow takes place at a powwow. And it's ah a native boy who... ah He's trying to plug in his game controller because it's dying. He's bored by what's going on. But it was cute. It was a nice little a nice little short. And Lotus Land is about ah ah someone who invents a machine that kills you a little.
01:00:55
Speaker
Just a little. um And then and she's showing it to her friend. ah Interesting. would also mention i reviewed some movies for ah the local Tallgrass Film Festival. nice. And I watched a world premiere um ah from the Kansas City area called Taffy, A Divine Instrument Against the Demonic Forces of Evil. which was, you know, kind of Buffy-ish, but also very much about a teen girl's relationship with her dad. And it was funny. it was very, very joke-dense.
01:01:37
Speaker
The other two that I had to written down to mention were, of course, Tyler Perry's Straw, o which was like a black woman's dog day afternoon.
01:01:49
Speaker
Wow. That was a fun one. Yeah. And ah the mainstream movie I most liked was 28 Years Later. I'm really impressed that they pulled off making a sequel so many years later that yes was a really good movie.
01:02:08
Speaker
Nice. how about you, Greg? What did you watch from 2022? So I had, I think, a relatively light collection of 2025 movies, but I got a number of them that I would like to talk about. So ones that really resonated with me or want. Well, we'll get into it. So the first off is I'm a vampire person. So sinners was real big on my list. Did either of you see sinners?
01:02:31
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Great stuff. I loved it I absolutely loved it. I felt like it was a, like, I know a lot about, I don't know a lot, but I know some about like blues music and things like that. So that if you know anything about that, it really adds something to the film. I felt like it showed vampires.
01:02:49
Speaker
i don't want to say it showed them sympathetically, but because typically when you say sympathetic vampire, you mean a vampire that wants to be a human and not a vampire. ah Why that sympathy I've never understood, but I feel like these vampires were allowed to show other emotions and do things that vampires are typically not allowed to do. And in that way, I felt sympathy for them. I felt that they were more of their own individual characters, which was interesting. i felt like it was a new take on, but without throwing out old traditions and things, which I thought was really nice for vampire genre stuff. So Like all around, I really, really loved it um and would recommend it to anyone who's intrigued by it in any way, shape, or form.
01:03:32
Speaker
ah The other vampire movie that I want to talk about did was technically not made in 2025. I saw it a few years ago, but it didn't get distribution until this year.
01:03:43
Speaker
Okay. It's a vampire film called The Vortilac. I'm going to spell that. Oh, I love the portal. It's so good. So it's V-O-U-R-D-A-L-A-K.
01:03:56
Speaker
ah It does something that I'm not going to divulge, ah but it's a strong choice. Some people don't like it, but the two people that I saw it with loved it, as did I. um in it's an adaptation of a Tolstoy short story, not Leo Tolstoy, but one of his relatives.
01:04:15
Speaker
It came out before even vampire with a Y by Polidari. So this, this is predating Dracula by a lot, I think. interesting um And it's the story of like a father who's like going off to fight some people. And he's like, hey if I come back in three days after sundown, don't let me in. Cause I'll be a Vordalac. And then he shows up at sundown and everyone's like, uh, so do we let them in or not? And they let them in.
01:04:45
Speaker
And things happen. And it's, I would love more people to see this. I think it's a great film. i think it's a lot of fun and I would love to see this director be able to keep doing things. So i want to champion their work. So that one is highly recommended by me.
01:05:02
Speaker
All right. Vortalak. ah And the other movie that I want to talk about is one that because when we were talking about what movies to watch for bad movie of the year, you know, and I watched Primitive War and I was like, I should watch something else. I should throw something else in the mix. And we had talked about Honey Don't at some point. And I was like, that'd be fun.
01:05:20
Speaker
I like Aubrey Plaza. I haven't seen Margaret Quayley do much, but the little bits I've seen of her in things, like in poor things, she grabs your attention, you know? So it's like, I love to see these two doing things. And it's it's Ethan Coen, right? Without Joel Coen.
01:05:36
Speaker
It's like, I've not heard good things. And i'm like, I'm curious what this is. And it's... Not good. It's just okay very it's very boring. plot doesn't really... it's so I think it's so it's like a modern noir. And I think it a lot of noir, sometimes things don't happen. And that was kind of the point. Because it came out... Noir was from a time when...
01:06:00
Speaker
everybody felt bad after the war. And so sometimes like there's no happy endings. And sometimes you try like the Maltese Falcon, I feel like is full of dead ends. And these mystery stories are full of MacGuffins and red herrings and things, but like the whole third act is just not even connected to the first two acts really until it is connected. And the whole reason why that happens is because one character pops in for literally several minutes and drastically changes the entire plot of the film. But they're completely unimportant, despite the fact that based on learning who they are, you think would be important.
01:06:34
Speaker
And it really just felt like the whole movie was just sort of made to make a lot of jokes. Like plot was sort of unnecessary. It was just there so that they could make some jokes. And that the honest truth is that I don't think any of the jokes were really that funny.
01:06:50
Speaker
Got it. Like an unfunny Big Lebowski. Yeah, basically. Like as someone was trying to make the Big Lebowski and just didn't understand what was actually good about it. And then I don't, I, I, so I also feel weird because I feel like it is not meant for a, us a straight white cisgendered male, but also I don't know that the target audience would actually find some of the ways that they handle some of the material, all that particularly good.
01:07:18
Speaker
Like, I don't know. There's a scene in which two people go on a date and they immediately start finger banging each other in public and they do it for a long time. And it's just like, I don't really know who this is for, or why you're doing it, or if this is funny. I don't really know what this is.
01:07:39
Speaker
It's our little movie. All right. Sounds challenging.
Interactive Fun: Guess the Cast Origins
01:07:44
Speaker
Sure. Speaking of challenging, do you guys want to play a game? Yeah. yeah All right. We're going to play a little this, that, or the other.
01:08:07
Speaker
As I ask you this question,
01:08:27
Speaker
Will it be A, B or C? A, B or C? And each time I ask you a question There's one thing that I want to Is it this, is it that, or is it the other?
01:08:49
Speaker
Is it this, is it that, or is it the other?
01:09:00
Speaker
That's right. We're doing a little this, that, or the other with the cast of Primitive War and where they're from. What I'm going to do is I'm going to give you a a character of the film and the actor who played them, and I want you to let me know if they are Australian, American, or wildcard. Ooh.
01:09:23
Speaker
And there'll be a chance for bonus points. If you get the wild card, you can try and guess the country where they were born. Okay. and Okay. This is the country where they're born.
01:09:35
Speaker
Yes. Okay. And this is a buzz in game. You'll buzz in by saying your own name. If your opponent gets it wrong, you will have the chance to steal. Everybody ready? Yeah. Question number one.
01:09:49
Speaker
He's the leader of the vultures, the noble and fearless Sergeant Baker played by Ryan Quanton. Anna. Anna? I know this one. It's a wild card. He is South African.
01:10:05
Speaker
Oh, okay. I must have messed that one up. I'll take your word on it. He's South African. I had Australian. Oh.
01:10:15
Speaker
Well, I mean, maybe we should double check. Let's see. I got him right. I got his IMDB right here. I mean, I don't care about winning, but I don't want to lose on a technicality.
01:10:28
Speaker
Yeah. Let's make sure we're not putting misinformation out there. There's also that. Oh, no. He is Australian. He's born in New South Wales.
01:10:42
Speaker
All right. Greg? Greg. Is he Australian?
01:10:49
Speaker
Correct. Greg's on the board. all right.
01:10:55
Speaker
My wife was just so convinced. I look at me. ah puppy Yeah. Listen, it's all right. We're all friends. And again, I don't care if I win. Question number two.
01:11:08
Speaker
A West German scientist who became addicted to morphine after her husband was killed by either dinosaurs or a power mad Russian general. I can't remember which. It's Sophia.
01:11:20
Speaker
Greg? As played. Greg. um Wild card.
01:11:27
Speaker
Correct. Tricia Helfer is a wild card. Where do you think she's from? Trying to remember. going to say Denmark.
01:11:40
Speaker
She was Canadian. Canadian. Okay. At least knew she was not Australian or from the United States. I knew that much. You're still up 2-0, Greg.
01:11:53
Speaker
All right, question number three, hands on buzzers. He's the hard-drinking pessimist that suggests that they get the fuck out of there at every opportunity. It's Eli, as played by Nick Wessler.
01:12:07
Speaker
Greg? Greg? Is he American?
01:12:14
Speaker
That's correct. He's from Albuquerque. Huzzah! You're on fire tonight, Greg. Better put me out. Maybe number four will be the damp blanket on this hot streak. We'll see. We shall see. Question number four.
01:12:30
Speaker
A man of faith, he's routinely seen praying the rosary, asking for forgiveness from those he's killed in war. It's Miller, as played by Albert Mwangi.
01:12:44
Speaker
ah Anna. Anna. Anna.
01:12:49
Speaker
Australian.
01:12:53
Speaker
No, I'm sorry, Greg. Can you steal a wild card?
01:12:59
Speaker
That's correct. Where do you think he's from, Greg? Britain. Yeah, had to try something. He's from Kenya. Okay.
01:13:11
Speaker
Question number five. He's the sniper that's seen too much death. It's changed him. It's Logan as played by Aaron Glenane.
01:13:23
Speaker
Anna. Anna? He's Australian. Correct. You're on the board. I actually saw him in another movie. Oh, was he? Yeah, it was good. yeah Okay.
01:13:37
Speaker
A movie of just a little thriller called Killing Ground. He was one of the two bad guys. Cool. yeah ah He's from Victoria. Question number six.
01:13:50
Speaker
He's the con man with the heart of gold that gets chocolates and pornos for the vultures and makes Logan promise to get some help when they get back from the front lines. It's Keys, as played by Anthony Ingruber.
01:14:04
Speaker
Greg? Greg. America.
01:14:10
Speaker
What? I'm sorry, Anakin, you steal. Australian.
01:14:16
Speaker
No, he was from the Philippines. Oh. Wouldn't he guess that? I mean, I didn't, so. Yeah. ah He's the newest member of the vultures, but the Sarge must have picked him for a reason.
01:14:31
Speaker
It's Leon, played by Carlos Sanson Jr. Greg? Greg. America.
01:14:41
Speaker
Oh, that hot streak has cooled off. Hannah, can you steal? Wild card.
01:14:50
Speaker
No, he's from Sydney, Sydney, Australia. All right. Well, good for him.
01:14:56
Speaker
Question number eight. He's the Sarge's right-hand man, which makes sense because he's also a sergeant. Loyal, level-headed, and deadly with a machete, it's x Xavier, played by Adolphus Whaley.
01:15:12
Speaker
Greg? Yep, Greg. Australia?
01:15:19
Speaker
and Sorry, that's not correct. Anna, can you steal? American.
01:15:25
Speaker
no That one was a trick question. He is an Australian citizen, but he was born in Liberia. Okay. Okay.
01:15:36
Speaker
What are our scores? Greg, you have four points. Anna has one. Okay. Maybe you'll be able to pull it out, Anna. We'll see. Yeah. We'll see. This one is worth quintuple the points. Okay.
01:15:53
Speaker
Question number nine. He's pulling the strings. The big dog, the man with the tiger in the cage. Colonel Jericho as played by Jeremy Piven. Oh, I feel like I should know this. Anna.
01:16:08
Speaker
American. Correct. He is from Manhattan, New York. For some reason, I just thought it would be wild card. would be somewhere else. But here we are.
01:16:20
Speaker
Nope. That was another trick question. Hmm. But it didn't trick you up enough, Greg. You're our big winner. Congratulations on winning. It has to feel great to win the best bad movie. I mean, yeah i mean it never hurts for certain.
01:16:35
Speaker
ah This is the all-star game of the year. Exactly.
Episode Wrap-up and Movie Reflections
01:16:39
Speaker
Exactly. Uh-oh, it's the Batty Awards.
01:16:51
Speaker
Now you're messing with us. Congratulations to all the nominees!
01:17:14
Speaker
That's right. Congratulations to all the nominees. It's the Batty Awards. And it's, of course, the Best Bad Movie Batty Awards 2025.
01:17:25
Speaker
yeah twenty twenty five Get zo do do do Greg, why don't you hit us off with your Batty Awards?
01:17:41
Speaker
All right. So first off, I'd like to give an honorable Batty Award to every character that said something along the lines of, I didn't sign up for this to fight fucking dinosaurs, man. Because every time anybody says it, I want to applaud and just scream. And it's so stupid and incredible.
01:17:59
Speaker
And I love it. But the real Batty Award... is going to go to Tricia Helfer for delivering my favorite line from the movie. And she's like, you have to go in there and pull the plug. And he's like, how do we do that? She goes, you literally pull the plug.
01:18:13
Speaker
And I just thought that that was the greatest thing. And I can't deliver it the way she does where just like, you literally pull the plug. Like, it's just like, which is funny because they also don't do that. No, no, they don't literally. get Yeah.
01:18:25
Speaker
Which is very upsetting to me. But I was just, she's just like, yeah, you just, you unplug it. Yeah, it doesn't work without electricity. Yeah, he's stupid. So hats off to you.
01:18:36
Speaker
You're the baddest baddie of the baddies to baddie. How about you, Anna? Do you have a baddie award? ah i I also have two. ah my The small one is The fact that every time the T-Rex's jaws come together, makes a comedy bonk noise. How did we not talk about this? It's an excellent Batty Award.
01:19:05
Speaker
oh no. I took it. ah You gave yourself two and you took one of mine? I'm sorry. i I'm sorry. It's all right. What's your other Batty Award, my love? My other one is ah goes to the alternate universe where this movie was a big hit and keys and Logan are the big new ship on archive of our own. because are Those two ever of romance.
01:19:35
Speaker
Yeah. All right. I'm just going to pull up a o three real quick and see primitive wars. How do here we go. Let's go to the search bar. Primitive war.
01:19:51
Speaker
Yeah, I understand your privacy. Yeah, I agree. Let them track your cookies. It Primitive War fan fiction.
01:20:03
Speaker
Oh, there is? yeah and Interesting. There's 51 works in Primitive War. Wow. Good for you, Primitive War, and the people who adore it All right. Yeah, I'm going to give my Batty Award not just to the delightful comedy bonks of every time the T-Rex snaps its jaws, but also to the people out there writing Primitive War fan fiction.
01:20:29
Speaker
Keep the Primitive War fandom alive. We want Primitive War 2. I want to find out about the Psalms of Zipitotec. Yes. This is great.
01:20:40
Speaker
There are there are totally multiple fanfics about these two. yeah i guess that other people saw I'm glad other people saw it. saw it.
01:20:52
Speaker
Yes. We hope listeners that you see it. We hope that you come around next week when we'll be talking about either Dante's peak with Courtney Collins, or maybe we'll be sneaking in a little episode that Anna and I will be recording over the holiday break. But I hope that you stick around for all of 2026. We're so excited for what's going coming down the pike this year. and we're excited that you're going to be here with us.
01:21:21
Speaker
Don't forget to like, follow, and subscribe. And until next week, be good and goodbye. Goodbye.
01:21:52
Speaker
of all gray in the past. Ooh, you know they're dinosaurs. Yes. They got tails and they got scales and you know it's primitive wall.
01:22:07
Speaker
Primitive wall. Primitive wall. This ain't no walk in the park, y'all. Primitive wall. Primitive wall.
01:22:17
Speaker
You know it's primitive wall.
01:22:27
Speaker
I like to imagine an alternate universe for John Fogarty wrote a protest song against a war with dinosaurs. That would be so good. It would good.