Is Primitive War a real film
Primitive War was theatrically released by Rialto Distribution in Australia on 21 August 2025. The film received a limited theatrical release on the same day in the United States by Fathom Entertainment.
Vietnam. 1968. A recon unit known as Vulture Squad is sent to an isolated jungle valley to uncover the fate of a missing Green Beret platoon. They soon discover they are not alone.Despite the constant of the soldiers running and gunning their way through war terrain while dodging prehistoric attacks, Primitive War is surprisingly inert.
Adapted from Ethan Pettus’ 2017 novel of the same name, Primitive War has a simple yet wonderfully preposterous core concept: What would happen if a Vietnam War recon group encountered vicious dinosaurs in the jungles of Southeast Asia? Sparke understands the assignment here, which is to ramp up the action and horror elements to create a wildly entertaining B-movie.
Smashing the war genre together with dinosaur horror shouldn’t work as well as it does here, but Sparke manages to infuse a surprising amount of historical Vietnam War accuracy into the movie without skimping on the dinosaur action. Despite such an unhinged narrative to work with, Sparke and Pettus, who helped adapt the screenplay, play it as a straight horror-drama, with only occasional comic relief.
Unlike its star-studded dino movie competition, the Australian-made Primitive War‘s cast isn’t loaded with noteworthy names. Jeremy Piven (Entourage) and Tricia Helfer (Battlestar Galactica) are probably the most recognizable faces in the movie, both using somewhat silly but decent enough accents given the nature of the movie.
