Primitive War: welcome to ’Nam, please mind the Raptors (horror war trailer).

There’s a moment in the trailer for Primitive War—somewhere between the burst of M60 fire and the unmistakable silhouette of a T-Rex in the napalm glow—when you realise: yes, we have officially entered the glorious realm of mad genius cinema. And frankly, here at SFcrowsnest, we’re absolutely here for it.

Primitive War, based on Ethan Pettus’s cult-favourite novel and directed by Luke Sparke (Occupation, Beyond the Known), is what happens when someone stares at Apocalypse Now, then quietly whispers, “What if… dinosaurs?” before scribbling frantically in a notebook for 18 months.

Set in Vietnam, 1968—because where else do you drop an entire squad of doomed, cigarette-smoking, slightly traumatised American soldiers—it follows Vulture Squad, a recon unit sent into the jungle to investigate the mysterious disappearance of a Green Beret platoon. What they find is not the Viet Cong. No, dear reader. What they find are velociraptors. And that’s just the appetiser.

Let’s talk cast. Tricia Helfer (yes, that one from Battlestar Galactica) brings gravitas and icy nerve. Jeremy Piven appears to be yelling and sweating in equal measure—classic war movie energy. Nick Wechsler looks like he wandered onto set by mistake and stayed just to see what would eat him. The trailer gives us lots of twitchy soldiers, grainy night vision, and the kind of jungle tension not seen since Predator said “If it bleeds, we can kill it.”

Except in this case, it’s the soldiers who are bleeding, and the dinosaurs who are doing all the killing. We see hints of every prehistoric nightmare: ambushes in the foliage, entire squads going silent, and the realisation that bullets don’t always stop things with scales and 65 million years of bitey instincts.

Sparke is leaning into practical grit and stylised mayhem, marrying ‘70s war cinema’s sweat-drenched paranoia with pulpy creature-feature thrills. The jungle becomes a living trap, the tone flits between visceral and surreal, and by the end of the trailer, we’re left wondering why this wasn’t made thirty years ago with Charles Bronson and animatronics.

There’s no subtle metaphor here—this is Jurassic Platoon. It’s Full Metal Jacket with teeth. It’s The Deer Hunter, but instead of Russian roulette, it’s guessing how many of your mates will be eaten before lunch.

And let’s not pretend this is high art. It’s not. It’s glorious, over-the-top, blood-soaked nonsense—and we say that with reverence. There’s a reason Primitive War became a cult novel. Dinosaurs in Vietnam is the kind of pitch that feels like it came from a dream Spielberg had after falling asleep watching Rambo with a fever.

So, what can we expect when it lumbers into cinemas in 2025? Expect carnage. Expect absurdity. Expect Piven shouting “What the hell is that?!” while something with twelve-inch claws leaps through the air. And expect fans of creature features, military horror, and pulpy sci-fi to grin like lunatics.

In short: if you’ve ever wanted to see a raptor disembowel a radio operator to a Creedence Clearwater Revival soundtrack, this is your year.