They Went In Search of Soldiers. They Found Dinosaurs!

What happens when soldiers meet monsters — not human, but prehistoric? Primitive War (2025) rips open the rulebook of war cinema and throws it straight into the Cretaceous. Based on Ethan Pettus’ cult novel, this savage blend of military grit and primal horror asks a terrifying question: what if Vietnam wasn’t the worst thing in the jungle?

The Plot

Set in 1968, during the height of the Vietnam War, a U.S. recon team is sent deep into the jungle on a covert mission — to investigate a remote valley where an entire platoon vanished without a trace.

What they find defies logic. The valley is teeming with living dinosaurs — raptors, rexes, and things far older and hungrier than man. As radio contact fades and the body count rises, the soldiers realize they’re not just fighting to complete their mission — they’re fighting to stay off the menu.

The deeper they go, the more the line between man and beast dissolves. And in the heart of the jungle, evolution’s cruelest survivor isn’t the dinosaur… it’s us.

Why It’s More Than Just Another Creature Feature

War meets prehistory – Blending gritty Vietnam combat realism with full-blown dinosaur horror.
Survival over spectacle – It’s not just about roaring monsters — it’s about the collapse of human control when nature reclaims dominance.
Psychological carnage – As fear and isolation eat away at the soldiers, the movie explores what happens when civilization breaks down.
Visceral practical effects – Early screenings praise its commitment to lifelike animatronics over heavy CGI.

Interesting Facts
- Adapted from Ethan Pettus’s 2018 novel Primitive War, which built a cult following for its brutal, realistic tone.
- Directed by Luke Sparke (Occupation, Bring Him to Me), known for combining scale with intensity.
- The film was shot in the dense jungles of Queensland, Australia, under extreme weather conditions to heighten realism.
- Practical dinosaur designs were inspired by the original Jurassic Park animatronic methods.
Bottom Line
Primitive War (2025) isn’t just another dinosaur movie — it’s a descent into chaos, where man’s greatest predator isn’t ancient or extinct, but the fear that lives inside him. It’s raw, brutal, and unrelenting — a cinematic firefight between evolution and extinction.
Because sometimes the past doesn’t stay buried…
It waits — hungry, in the dark.