Forest Primeval (2008) — Triskaidekafiles

FOREST PRIMEVAL

WRITER: John Polonia

DIRECTORS: Mark and John Polonia

STARRING: Dave Fife as Reggie

Ken VanSant as Lou

Cindy Wheeler as Camille

Shantee Proctor as Dr. Dawson

John Polonia as Frank

QUICK CUT: A group of people spend some time exploring the forest, and come across some impressive finds.

THE MORGUE

Camille - A young woman who was in a car accident some time ago, granting her the gift to see horrible murders and do nothing about it. But she’s determined to try.

Reggie - A good ol’ boy trying to make it rich with a metal detector in the forest.

Lou - Reggie’s best friend, who is just along for the ride, until Reggie finds stuff, and starts seeing the possibility of dollar signs.

TRISK ANALYSIS: Welcome back, Triskelions! Following up the last Trisking's wooden monster lumbering around (Heh!) I decided to up the ante with Forest Primeval, another flick from the schlockmeisters, the Polonia Brothers. Actually, it's a wild as heck coincidence, and there's not so much killer trees in this movie, but the timing was worth pointing out. Anyways! Pack up your gear and let's head into the woods...

The movie opens up on a hunter doing what he does adequately, hunting, while he leaves his wife to sit in the Bronco. And she's not happy about it. Like...what did you expect? You should know hunting takes awhile.

But she gets bored sitting around, calls him up, and scares off a buck, insisting she wants to go home. Babe...we just got here.

Shortly thereafter, there is an earthquake, and before you can make a "Did the Earth move for you too??" joke, a rocky head is revealed in the side of a mountain.

It’s the MCU debut of Spragg, the Living Hill!

From out of this head, presumably since we don't ACTUALLY see it happen, a creature crawls up, finds the hunter, and slices off his head. And before the rest of the movie continues, it finds his wife and kills her too.

But then it's time to meet the actual main character of the movie, Camille, who wakes up screaming in a hospital. She's been having troubling dreams that she believes are real, and she's trying to get help.

The doctors not believing her, as well as a lack of sleep, has led her to become very salty and short with people. I like her already.

But she starts telling her story, and oh no, this movie is flashback! We flashback to Reggie and Lou, wandering around in an RV, because Reggie just got a metal detector, and thinks he can strike it rich.

Pssst, hey, can you tell me which way to the Winterbeast set?

The creature sees their RV and suddenly makes it lose control. Because apparently it can mess with RVs. Why? How? Who knows? It's a moment of drama! But the guys check things out, everything seems okay and they keep driving.

We then meet past Camille, as she starts having visions of the creature. Why? How? More things that go unexplained!

Look. I'm all for Stephen King's idea that the unexplained is scarier, but sometimes you at least have to explain SOME things.

You're finally mastering your mom's 12 hour sauce, but the stove goes out at hour 11....

She calls her boyfriend, who doesn't believe her about her visions, and I guess we do get SOME explanation. They mention a car crash and a head injury, and how everyone thinks she'll have "phantom images" for a time. But instead...visions!

Meanwhile, back in the woods, a hiker comes across our would be treasure hunters, and he asks if they know a shortcut down the mountain.

The random encounter ends, and the hiker takes the quickest way right to his death at the hands of the monster.

Cami witnesses the murder in her visions, and scribbles what she says is a drawing of Skull Mountain and...I'm sorry, what?

That is Mike Strauber Mountain, at best.

While that one hiker’s aimless wandering comes to an end, the treasure hunters aimless wanderings are only just beginning. At least, Reggie's is. Lou is only there to get away from shit, so he stays in the RV to watch tv.

After several false alarms of finding pennies and cans and such, Reggie does find something of interest, a dagger with a bone handle. Huh. I'm sure this won't have any plot relevance going forward.

But night falls as everyone is still wandering around, and we watch some random woman get into the shower. I'm sure she is safe, nothing bad EVER happens in the shower in horror movies!

The shin bone’s connected to the KNIFE BONE.

The creature comes for this random woman randomly, and kills her, because that's what it does. Why? How? Who knows?

Camille naturally sees the murder happen, and gets more headaches from it. She decides she has to do SOMETHING about this, or her head will burst.

Back at the RV, the boys are checking out Reggie's find, which I say looks suspiciously like a knife blade stuck to a dildo, but I digress. This is not helped when they both comment on how it feels like the dildagger is "vibrating"

Hey, you’re not supposed to dispose of tempera paint down the drain!!

They turn in for the night, but Reggie gets woken up in the middle of the night. He sees a "grotesque" face outside the window, but we never see it, because of budgetary reasons. And the fact these scenes, no matter how much they're in closeup, are still obviously shot during the day.

Camille finally leaves her house the following morning, to join all the aimless wandering in the woods, because why not?

Meanwhile, the other two go wandering the woods to see if they can find anything else valuable. And the creature uses it's powers to *raise the dead* to chase after them. How? Why? Who knows??

As if to curse me for saying that, our three main characters are now all wandering the forest alone, doing little else beside that, looking for plot.

The first monster shows up to at least give Reggie a good scare, but now his wandering is changed to running. Which is a step up, but still a lot of moving through the forest with little else happening.

He finds Lou, and in a nice change of pace, he immediately believes Reggie. So now they're wandering together, back to the RV.

Dog the treasure hunter, and Discount Tucker Carlson.

This movie seriously has almost "rock climbing" levels of padding, as we jump over to Camille shuffling around the forest, while the found skeleton of cadavra sneaks up behind her.

Meanwhile, the guys discover their RV is refusing to start. While Lou checks the engine, Reggie wields the stabby bone in case they're attacked.

The skeleton in a trenchcoat finally finds Camille, and she buries an axe or something conveniently lying around into its head. Well, that was anticlimactic.

I watch over the forest while the Master is away…

Lou decides the engine is screwed, and says he's gonna run down the mountain to the town they passed, to see if he can get any help. Because that worked out so well for the last guy. Actually, now that I think of it, “Torgo” should’ve been that hiker brought back to life. But I digress.

Anyways, all Lou does is run into the creature, and gets some help being dead. But not until we get a few minutes of running through the forest, first!

Camille feels the latest death, and Gambits herself into a tree. The creature finds her, but doesn't do much else besides fondle her a bit.

The monster wants to clean house, and goes after Reggie, but the knife keeps the creature at bay. Reggie realises this, and tells the monster to leave, now, and never come back.

Back in town, Camille's boyfriend is worried about her, and can't find her. So he goes in search of her. Because we need even MORE wandering in the forest at this late stage of the movie, I guess.

Frank meets the monster, and his untimely end, because...well, he was there.

Reggie finds Camille the next season...wait, how did the leaves change from dead orange autumn leaves to full, lucious greenery overn...you know what? Low budget movie filming when it can, I'm just gonna move on. I have bigger fish to fry.

So these two decide to get out of the movie, and head back to the RV. And so it end...aww, no, no luck there.

Anyways, since the RV won't start, they instead decide to do MORE walking, to try and get to town. They don't get very far before the creature jumps Reggie.

You must feel the burning of my Penance Stare!

He tosses Cami the knife, she tosses Reggie the whip, and runs for a bit, and the monster catches up with her. She gives it one good stab and it goes up in smoke. This is again, fairly anticlimactic.

But the flashback is over, so we jump back to the hospital where she is recovering, but the doctorm doesn't believe her out there story. Instead, he calls the cops to come pick her up.

Oh, and we get the reveal she is now pregnant with the knockoff Winterbeast's child, or now bears its spirit, or whatever. Because sure, let's end on that note.

TRISK ASSESSMENT

Video: Looks pretty good.

Audio: Sounds all right, nothing to comment on.

Body Count: It feels like a very small movie, but it has a fair amount of death.

1 - After six minutes of wandering, Jarvis the hunter loses his head.

2 - And then his girlfriend goes squish.

3 - The hiker also loses his head.

4 - A woman in the shower meets her end.

5 - Lou gets his face ripped apart

6 - John Polonia gets sliced up.

7 - Can you kill a skeleton that's already dead?

8 - The monster pounces on Reggie

9 - Camille stabs the demon monster

10 - And then it's implied she kills the doctor.

Best Corpse: The very first beheading stands out, since it sets the tone.

Blood Type - B: Quite a bit of blood, even if it is bright red. And the effects for the beheadings are nicely done.

Sex Appeal: Nope.

Drink Up! Every time there is shot of nothing but forest.

Movie Review: For an indie low budget flick, it’s all right. I’ve made my beef with the pacing and the padding well known by this point. But the basic idea isn’t bad, it just didn’t have enough gas in the tank. Camille shines though, and does a good job selling the pain and frustration of the visions, and no one believing her. Where the story lacks, it’s at least well directed, with a level of creativity I long for some days. Grading this one on a curve, since they had limited resources, and managed something decently coherent, so three out off five bone daggers.

Entertainment Value: Managing to pull off a level of competency…actually hurts the movie? I wish there was a little more goofiness here, a little more levity, to break up the wandering, or something. The monster actually looks pretty good. It’s actually well made enough to not be completely laughable. Still, John Polonia’s cameo was fun, as he hams it up as the assholeiest boyfriend I’ve seen in awhile. The movie is overall very average with nothing much to make it stand out, but nothing to really sink the ship, either. Three out of five resurrected Torgos.