Monster Scholar

I’m not usually one for big nature horror movies like Godzilla or Eight Legged Freaks, but when I picked up Primeval on a lark I was not disappointed. Primeval follows a group of journalists who travel to Burundi, Africa in search of Gustave, a giant crocodile who has been feeding on humans along the banks of the Rusizi river. They find him, but this giant croc isn’t the only thing on the hunt as the crew find themselves in the middle of a violent and bloody civil struggle. Primeval is ultimately a film about the monsters we create, commenting on race and the media in the process. The figure of Gustave, the monster croc, can be read as a natural parallel to the bloody conflict taking place in Burundi. Just as Gustave claims the lives of hundreds of unsuspecting Africans, so does the war. This parallel is made clear in the film’s opening scene as an excavation is under way to unearth a mass grave. When the expedition’s lead forensic anthropologist ventures too close to the water, she ...