Primal Games (2025) by David Ryan Keith

Director: David Ryan Keith

Year: 2025

Country: USA

Alternate Titles: N/A

Genre: Action/Sci-Fi

Plot:

Taking a honeymoon in the countryside, a couple head into the wilderness for a celebration which is interrupted when a stranger arrives threatening to kill them which forces them to go on the run in the deep woods where they are stranded in which soon turns into a more shocking trip than they imagined. When the full extent of the trip is revealed to be the cause of a special corporation offering hunting trips on various clones in the middle of the woods, the surviving clones band together to stop the company from continuing to operate.

Review:

Overall, this was a surprisingly fun and enjoyable genre effort. Most of the film’s positives are focused on the strikingly original attempt at what looks from the start to be a simple survival-in-the-woods thriller. The initial idea of getting them out into the woods with their honeymoon trip and the arrival of the stranger who stays with them only to realize there’s something off the longer he goes with them as this leads to the first shocking reveal of this being a trap to lure them into the woods to start hunting them. This starts a series of impressive, brutal stalking scenes detailing the couple trying to overcome their more powerful tormentor, who tries to get more inventive and graphic with how he tortures them in the name of fun, featuring his treatment of others that turns to them. It’s all quite tense, brutal, and thrilling as they struggle to get out of the woods without succumbing to the barbaric villain who’s enjoying their work.

When the film shifts gears and offers up a secondary twist involving the whole thing being an illegal hunting operation where citizens pay for the opportunity to hunt random strangers, it turns away from this into a thrilling, low-budget Action film. Further revealing the idea that there’s a multitude of clones in the area under the same pretense of arriving there on a honeymoon so that there’s a reason for them to be there and that intelligence, strength, and survival tactics are controlled individually to personalize the hunt, this one becomes all the more exciting with more being revealed about the universe at present. Gaining the requisite knowledge of everything about how it operates and functions by taking out the other hunters targeting the various clones in the woods, the hard-hitting action with their martial arts and fighting skills results in some bloody confrontations.

As there’s a solid enough grasp on everything at this point, the final half of everything dives into a fully chaotic Action film as the remaining clones set out to take down the forces controlling everything. This brings about a slew of frantic gunfights, hand-to-hand martial arts displays, and even some explosive fire fights within the forests or into the secured compound of the leaders behind everything, giving the film a lot more energy and impact than expected here with the added bonus of helping to fill in the blanks on some of the storyline issues that were brought about here. The only issue with this one is the bizarre finale that seems to be rather inconsistent with how the group operates, as there’s little security clearance here, which makes the end result feel unlikely and unnatural, but thankfully, this is a minor quibble that doesn’t harm this one too much.

Overview: ****/5

A generally thrilling and enjoyable genre feature, there are a lot of likable factors on display here to make this one an immensely entertaining feature without much to hold it back. Those with an interest in the subject matter, who enjoy this kind of style, or are fans of the creative crew will have a lot to like here, while most others out there should heed caution.