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The Primevals: 3 Blu-ray Collection
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray ALL - America - Full Moon Review written by and copyright: Eric Cotenas (22nd January 2025). |
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The Film
 Having been kicked out the university doctorate program for submitting a "speculative" thesis about the existence and nature of the yeti as factual, anthropology dropout Matt Connor (Vampirella's Richard Joseph Paul) gets a special invite back to campus by Dr. Claire Collier (Beyond the Door's Juliet Mills) who reveals at a conference the killing of a "Nepalese anthropoid" of immense stature that had killed a number of sherpas in the mountains, unveiling its frozen carcass to the press and colleagues. Claire introduces the miffed Matt to biologist Dr. Lloyd Trent (The Thing from Another World's Robert Cornthwaite) who discovered upon dissection of the creature's brain that its violent behavior might have been caused by a surgical operation as barbaric as it is advanced beyond known science. Knowing that they will not be able to answer any of the questions the dissection raised unless they secure a live specimen but wary of the dicey political situation raised by getting the yeti out of Nepal in the first place, Claire invites Matt to redeem his academic reputation by taking part in an unofficial expedition with the help of big game hunter Rondo Montana (Silver Bullet's Leon Rossum), doctorate student Kathleen (City Slickers' Walker Brandt) conducting fieldwork in the Himalayas, and local guide Siku (Killing Zoe's Tai Thai) whose older brother Tenzang (Star Trek: First Contact's Eric Steinberg) was killed by the creature. Upon arrival, however, they discover that there is indeed evidence of more yetis in the form of escalating attacks on humans leading to the question of where their territory is in the mountains and what is driving them away from it. After a near fatal encounter with one of the creatures, the expedition is able to follow its tracks and discover that the mythical "Forbidden Palace" from which the sherpas steer clear appears to be of futuristic and alien design, leading to a literal land that time forgot where the yeti are not the only beings untouched by evolutionary progress; however, those behind this "controlled experiment" prove far more dangerous. Initially conceived in the late sixties by stop motion animator David Allen and its scripted developed throughout the seventies with fellow animator Randall William Cook (I, Madman), Allen pitched The Primevals to producer Charles Band when Cook got him a job doing effects for Laserblast. Production was announced in 1978 with a projected 1980 release; however, the production proved too cost-prohibitive. Allen continued working with Band including work Empire films like Dolls and From Beyond and being the puppet master behind Full Moon's Puppetmaster and replacing the initial conception of monster suited actors on oversized sets with rod puppets for Subspecies when Band finally greenlit the production in 1994, shooting much of the film in Romania with additional work in Itay. Production came to a halt when Band lost his distribution deal with Paramount but promised Allen could resume work at a later date. Allen was able to shoot all of the live action material and much of the effects shots before returning to the states; however, the years passed and Allen passed away in 1999. After a successful crowdfunding campaign, work resumed on the film in 2018 with Allen associate Christopher Endicott (Freaked) supervising additional stop motion and visual effects work, Full Moon regular Jeff Farley (The Taking of Deborah Logan) handling new make-up effects – Mark Rappaport (Jupiter Ascending) supervised the make-up effects for the 1996 shoot – and Flat Earth Digital handling compositing as well as some new CGI and digital matte paintings. The result was completed in 2022 and released to film festivals in 2023.  Although there are telltale signs of it being a 1990s production in the slick photography of Full Moon regular Adolfo Bartoli (Beyond the Door 3) and the production design of Milo (House IV: The Repossession), the story itself is an affectionate throwback to fifties science fiction, a dash of Universal-International, American International, and even a bit of Hammer with the conceit of alien intervention in human evolution as much a throwback as anticipating Stargate which was released while The Primevals was in production. Paul is a rather shaky lead, and the filmmakers seem reluctant to make Brandt a scream queen but give her little else to do, and both are overshadowed by Russom and a charming turn from Mills – her husband Maxwell Caulfield appeared in Full Moon's Oblivion 2: Backlash the same year with Paul who was also the lead in the first Oblivion – who delivers the explanation and the moral lessons during the climax with the authority of a fifties sci-fi scientist. While the draw of the film has always been the stop motion effects, even at (or especially at) a time in the nineties when CGI was still cost-prohibitive but bound to take over the entire industry down to low budget and independent productions, one cannot help but feel like the arena climax is evidence of the later post-production making do with what was available and that we might have seen more action had Allen and crew not been in a rush to get everything they needed in the can before the indefinite postponement. Other signs of the unfinished nature of the production from the differences between the visual and digital effects – particularly flames and muzzle flashes – as well as the different stop motion designs and animation of them to some apparent missing insert shots as Claire and Matt speak emphatically about the mutilations done to a hominid corpse. It is also obvious that in a vintage Full Moon production, the Romanian extras during the press conference would have had their voices replaced via ADR, and there are also instances where the underscore and effects work are mixed louder than the production audio (Richard Band's mix of Bratislava Symphony Orchestra and synthesizers sounds quite distinct from his mix of symphonic session musicians and synclavier in the eighties and nineties). Despite Allen living to see his project to fruition, The Primevals has been given a respectful treatment by Full Moon, but one cannot help but feel that the film might have not stood out from Full Moon's catalogue had it been completed at the time despite Band having intended to lavish two years of post-production before its scheduled 1998 release; although the fact that the most recent work on the film took four years suggests that it was a much a passion project for Band and Allen's colleagues since its release to film festivals, streaming, and physical media is unlikely to recoup its costs. 
Video
Released as Full Moon website-exclusive three-disc featuring a second disc with Allen's original cut and a third disc featuring a documentary – available in both slipcase or an ultimate collector's edition in a leather case with postcards and enamel pins – and a single-disc standard edition last year, Full Moon's "3 Blu-ray Collection" replicates the formerly website-exclusive slipcase edition. The 2023 cut of the film is presented in a 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.78:1 widescreen transfer retains the nineties saturated colors rather than the temptation to skew towards a "modern" look although an unevenness of texture and sharpness between some shots in the same scenes suggests a degree of noise reduction has been applied to better blend in the bits missing from the negative or possibly just a side effect of some of overlaying some CGI onto live action footage shot with the intention of more traditional optical effects compositing. 
Audio
The default audio is Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo while a 5.1 track and SDH subtitles are available via remote (either the consistent lack of a setup menu is cost savings in disc authoring or Full Moon is authoring discs with some consumer hobbyist software that only allows one track and the other one has to be muxed manually). While the other Full Moon titles of this vintage were Ultra Stereo and the Blu-ray 5.1 tracks upmixes, The Primevals' original mix is 5.1 since the scoring and mixing were completed in 2022. As mentioned above, the music and effects are sometimes louder than dialogue within the scene, but this is evident while being less distracting in 5.1 compared to the 2.0 fold-down where you soundbar and headphone listeners might need to fiddle with different virtual audio filter presets to see what sounds best. Optional English SDH subtitles are provided and have fewer transcription errors than one expects of Full Moon subtitle tracks.
Extras
The sole extra on the first disc is a trailer (2:12). Disc two features the David Allen Version (97:43 versus the 90:52 of the 2023 version) of the film. This is not an older master or even a workprint but a reconstruction utilizing the 2023 master for the body of the film with some additions and substitutions. The major addition is a five minute sequence while the team is attacked by a rhinoceros/reptile hybrid represented as a drawing rotoscoped into the live action with only a few poses. While this sequence is exciting, it presumably was not completed by the later team because of the source materials and/or the armature for the creature might not have been built. The other additions are substitutions including storyboard animated into the alien's video recording depicting their arrival on the planet and their experiments, and the final arena sequence features several additional shots of yeti action represented by animated storyboard rotoscoped into the live action along with some more shots of the mutated aliens, including some live action interaction with the humans. This is a fascinating viewing of what Allen intended and what was possible with what the filmmakers had. The 5.1 and 2.0 stereo tracks are not compromised by the additions suggesting that the filmmakes went to the trouble of fully mixing both versions, and one hopes that the reconstruction of Allen's version is also available for projection. Both versions could have been included on one BD50 via separate encodes or branching, but presumably Full Moon saved costs by not authoring separate standard and limited editions of the first disc (the Australian Blu-ray features both cuts on the same disc, although the Allen version is a direct port of the encode here).  The third disc features the set's extras starting with "Lost to Time: Unearthing The Primevals" (45:31) directed by Daniel Griffith, scripted by filmmaker C. Courtney Joyner (The Lurking Fear), narrated by Jeffrey Combs (Re-Animator), and featuring interviews with effects artists Dennis Muren (Jurassic Park), Phil Tippett (Mad God), Susan Frank Turner (Dreamscape), William Stromberg (Terminator II: Judgment Day), Jon Berg (The Fly), Tom St. Amand (The Day After Tomorrow), Dave Carson (Enemy Mine), and Endicott along with producer Band and archival footage of Allen. They cover Allen's childhood admiration of effects artists Willis O'Brien and Ray Harryhausen along with all things King Kong (and his later attempts to put himself up for the job of animating the beast for the proposed remakes), doing uncredited work for effects artist David L. Hewitt, meeting Muren and Jim Danforth () and sculpting creatures for Muren's The Equinox... A Journey Into the Supernatural, working at a studio for effects on television commercials with Tippet – jobs of which included animating the Pillbury Doughboy and the Jolly Green Giant along with Davy and Goliath. They also discuss the various iterations of Allen's idea which eventually became The Primevals including a version that interested Hammer Films while he was assisting Danforth on When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth, the making of the "Raiders of the Stone Ring" promo reel, being recommended by make-up artist Steve Neill (Ghostbusters) to Band for visual effects on Laserblast, and Band's initial push for Allen's film – which was stalled by work on The Day Time Ended – and the remainder of the documentary takes us through to the Full Moon shoot and Allen's death without much discussion of Full Moon's financial problems when their Paramount deal was not renewed. The disc also includes the "Raiders of the Stone Ring" (10:06) which was never really finished and has been assembled from the available footage with subtitles for the dialogue since sound was not recorded. "Primevals: A False Start" (1:41) is a look at test footage from the 1978 pre-production. The 1984 promo reel(2:30) talks the film up as a major production while the 1997 promo reel (4:54) looks like it could have ended up being the introduction of a VideoZone behind the scenes piece. Time-lapse animation (0:59) is actually video of the dolly right Allen used to capture a stop motion shot with camera movement while "David Allen at the Moviola" (6:10) features audio from a discussion between Allen and effects artist Paul Gentry (The Fifth Element) about effects shots seen in progress. "Randall William Cook visits The Primevals" (2:31) is a piece Cook (The Thing) did for Allen's memorial using video of the last time he visited Allen at his studio doing work on the film. Charles Band and David Allen on The Primevals" (1:43) is an extract from Band's Cinemaker video series covering the film and hopes to finish it. "The Beginning and the End" (3:20) features video of Allen working on the first effects shots in 1993 and the digital work on the stop motion work of Kent Burton (Coraline) from the later shoot. "A Celebration of Tenacity: Q&A at Industrial Light and Magic" (30:03) features several of the "Lost to Time: Unearthing The Primevals" interviewees at a post-screening Q&A at Industrial Light and Magic. 
Packaging
The three discs are packaged in individual keep cases with their own cover art in a slipcase. Do note that the both the slipcase and ultimate collector's edition in a leather case with postcards and enamel pins are still available directly from Full Moon.
Overall
A passion project for the late David Allen taken on by Charles Band, The Primevals as finished nearly twenty years after its original shoot is imperfect but as fascinating for what is onscreen as how it got there.
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