Primal Rage (1988)
Directed by Vittorio Rambaldi
All hail Tubi, king of the horror movie streaming! Seriously though, its free and they have a buttload of horror. Hell, they even have a subcategory of “Gialli and Italian Horror” which is awesome. I ran across Primal Rage on there and it made me think of the old SNES fighter, which has nothing to do with this movie.
Primal Rage is about a group of friends at a college, whom deal with a rage virus taking over their friends and causing havoc on campus. The story is simple, shit it has been done before…ever seen Rabid? That movie is weird! Well think Rabid or 28 Days Later, sans armpit creature. Again Rabid is odd. The cast is pretty likable, Patrick Lowe is the main character, Sam, and his friend Duffy is played by Mitch Watson. These two guys have two love interests, Debbie and Lauren, played by Sarah Buxton and Cheryl Arutt. They’re all rather likable and Cheryl Arutt’s hair is that 80s, mall sexy. If you know what I mean, and I think you do.
The effects are adequate. Nothing too amazing, nothing laughable really. I love how the infected people seem to slowly decompose like a zombie. I don’t remember too much about the soundtrack other than the delightfully 80s song that plays during the opening and closing credits, which was reminiscent of the Amsterdamned theme, which is an earworm!
If you love 80s horror, and you want something a little more obscure, then maybe Primal Rage will scratch that itch for you. It has decent comedy, a fun cast and decent effects. The plot may have been done before but its nicely handled in this movie. I give this a solid C+, it isn’t amazing, has some corny moments but is pretty decent.
