War is already unforgiving, but Primitive War turns the battlefield into something far more primal. Luke Sparke’s latest survival thriller crashes two violent worlds together—Vietnam-era combat and rampaging, prehistoric predators—creating a spectacle where soldiers don’t just fight enemies… they fight extinction.
Premiering December 12 on Lionsgate Play via PLDT Home, Smart, and Cignal, the film follows The Vulture Squad, a recon unit sent deep into the jungles of Vietnam to locate a missing Green Beret platoon.
What they find is a nightmare beyond military intelligence: abandoned Soviet experiments, a valley crawling with lethal dinosaurs, and a mission that mutates into a desperate struggle to make it out alive. Every rustle, every shadow, every step could be the last.
Led by Ryan Kwanten, Tricia Helfer, and Jeremy Piven, the cast brings grit and intensity to a film that blends the paranoia of classic war movies with the ferocity of Jurassic-level creature chaos. Sparke’s direction leans heavily into atmosphere and suspense, crafting a world where the familiar horrors of war collide violently with the unimaginable.
The director says the inspiration struck unexpectedly. While speaking to SYFY News, he recalled stumbling across artwork of a raptor leaping from the jungles of Vietnam: a single image that blasted him back to childhood and set him on the path to adapting Ethan Pettus’ novel. Determined to ground the fantastical premise in authenticity, Sparke enlisted a seasoned Vietnam veteran as military adviser to sharpen the film’s realism and structure.
Jeremy Piven, who plays the hardened General Jericho, describes the film as surreal and irresistibly thrilling. “I play Jericho, one of these old-school, passionate generals. He just lost a bunch of his green berets. He’s a guy that’s seen everything, but he’s never seen this. Suddenly he comes across a dinosaur tooth, and nothing’s making sense. I love taking these two worlds and having them clash,” he shared, calling Primitive War a gritty collision of classic war drama and monstrous terror.
For fans of military thrillers, creature features, or any story that dares to push genre boundaries, Primitive War offers a ferocious new angle on survival cinema. It’s explosive, eerie, and utterly unpredictable—a battlefield thriller where the enemy is unlike anything humanity has ever faced.
Primitive War lands on Lionsgate Play this December 12. Brace yourself for a new breed of warfare.