PRIMAL RAGE (1988)
Up until today, I would have told you that Primal Rage was a bitchin' arcade game. I mean, I'll still tell you that (think Mortal Kombat, only with dinosaurs as the combatants), but I've learned that it's also a cheese-encrusted epidemic thriller in the same vein as 12 Monkeys or Outbreak. NOTE: It's in the same vein, but we're dealing with a different arm altogether. If optics help, I'm picturing the arm of a clammy, desquamated* heroin addict. Too harsh? This movie was co-written by Umberto Lenzi, so forgive me for passing judgment. Actually, what we have here is a bait-and-switch scenario, so my allegory may not be harsh enough.
At first glance, I thought I was signing up for a braindead "killer monkey" flick. Y'know, like Shakma. Instead, Primal Rage anticipates 28 Days Later with a thin, timeworn plot centering around a baboon-spread contagion. It puts the "zoo" in "epizootic." Holy shit; that should have been the tagline! Anyway, it's...meh. I dug the streamlined effects, the pace is sharp, and the cast does take the script seriously. It's just really easy to poke holes in this thing, which is what she said (those jokes don't read very well). I'm all out of flowery adjectives, so I'll simply say that the ending sucks. To use wrestling jargon, the third act is marred by a faulty false finish. I'm sure that you could find another dirty joke in there somewhere.
*Why did I google image-search that shit?
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