Word association dictates that the first thing even the most casual of movie-goers thinks of when they hear the word “dinosaur” is Jurassic Park. July 2nd will see the release of Jurassic World Rebirth, a film that has already faced significant skepticism from its own fans. After the poorly received Fallen Kingdom and Dominion, many have written the Jurassic franchise off as yet another bloated series that blew past its natural end. The irony of all ironies, Michael Crichton’s beloved horror novels made several pointed critiques of large corporations making cash-grabs. But dinosaur fans no longer have to put all their eggs in the Jurassic basket. The start of this month saw the drop of the full trailer for Luke Sparke’s adaptation of Ethan Pettus’s novel, Primitive War, and, oh boy, the trailer is promising a genuine attempt at marrying all the action-packed drama of a war movie with creature-feature levels of dinosaur horror. Since the 1990s, audiences have been champing at the bit for a proper union of dinosaurs and horror, and Sparke’s new trailer might just be the movie they’ve been waiting for.
What is ‘Primitive War’ About?

The full-length trailer for Primitive War promises, “This ain’t no walk in the park,” and from the looks of it, it sure ain’t. Following actors Jeremy Piven, Tricia Helfer, Ryan Kwanten, and Nick Wechsler as an elite extraction team ordered to find and recover a platoon that’s gone MIA somewhere in the jungle, Primitive War looks like it will be launching into tense action from the get-go. The crew investigates the shadowy jungle, searching for the missing men and what took them. Unfortunately for them, the answer is far toothier than anticipated. Primitive War is set during the Vietnam War, and from the trailer, it is making the most of its backdrop.
A famously fraught time in American history, it will be interesting to see if the film toys with any psychological horror through existential questions of fairness. The Vietnam War was the first televised war, and it served as a real-life horror for a lot of Americans. The men of Primitive War were likely drafted, and now, not only are they trying to survive a war, but they’re also being hunted by dinosaurs. There are lots of opportunities for subtle horror indicators before ever getting to the dinosaurs, like addressing how young the majority of drafted personnel were, the terrifying implications of a missing platoon, or any of the other grim realities of war.

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First ‘Primitive War’ Behind the Scenes Sneak Peek Plunges Into the Dino-Infested Jungles of Vietnam [Exclusive]

The Vietnam War-set horror flick stars Jeremy Piven, Tricia Helfer, and Ryan Kwanten.

The dinosaurs themselves are, unsurprisingly, the biggest draw of Primitive War. The editor for the trailer was smart and kept most of the dinosaurs from being seen in any full capacity. Instead, many dinosaurs are shown as shadows, like creeping ghosts or unfathomable monsters. This decision adds a nice layer of unease to the trailer and addresses the number one complaint about modern trailers—showing too much. Not a single dinosaur is seen in its entirety, only quick glimpses of a tapping raptor nail, or a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it breach out of the water. At the very end of the trailer, three raptor-looking dinosaurs snap at the camera, but otherwise, the creatures are kept just out of view. These clips show off what looks to be some very promising CGI designs while preserving the breathtaking reveal of seeing a dinosaur in the 20th century.
How ‘Primitive War’ Can Bring Dinosaurs to Horror

Crichton’s Jurassic Park is an unnerving nightmare full of teeth, body parts, and capitalist critique. The filmic franchise is an action-adventure romp exploring science fiction genre tropes. Fans of the novel and audiences enticed by the promise of dinosaur horror have long bemoaned the loss of gnarly content when the page was adapted for the silver screen. Primitive War promises to satisfy these eager audiences with a proper blend of action, suspense, and horror. Dinosaurs in the modern world are an inherently terrifying concept, but few films, including Jurassic Park’s own The Lost World, fail to land the punch of modern man meets prehistoric monster. Primitive War is gearing up to show just how useless military training and big guns are when faced with pure predatory instinct.
More than just bringing horror back to the dinosaurs, Primitive War might finally open the door for dinosaurs to explode into Hollywood. Due to the massive cultural success of the Jurassic franchise, dinosaurs have calcified into figures not unlike Frankenstein or Dracula — iconic monsters associated with a specific IP. A dinosaur movie, regardless of the genre, is associated with Jurassic Park. Like an actor who everyone associates with a character they played once, dinosaurs have been typecast. After 2023’s 65 did so poorly with critics and audiences alike, it seemed like all hope may have been lost for getting dinosaurs in more movies. But, Primitive War and the excitement surrounding it promise a new, diverse future for dinosaurs in horror cinema.
Primitive War is set to arrive later this year.

Primitive War

Release Date

June 1, 2025

Director

Luke Sparke

Writers

Luke Sparke