It’s man against beast in the animalistic action-thriller Primal. Nicolas Cage squares off against a ferocious white jaguar set loose on an ocean cargo ship. With a dangerous mercenary and various other exotic beasties also on board, our hero has no option but to go on the hunt against his deadly animal foes.
As we get set to see Cage face down the deadly jaguar with Primal’s release on digital download 10 February and DVD 17 February. We take a look back at the most epic Man Vs. Beast movies of all time.
THE BIRDS (1963)
Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds laid the groundwork for the classic animal attack thriller. Loosely based on a story by Daphne Du Maurier, The Birds tells of a sudden and violent attack by all the birds in a small town in California over a few days. For his film, Hitchcock moved the action from the British town in Du Maurier’s story to California. The director was supposedly inspired by a story of a group of birds that turned on the townspeople of Capitola, California in August 1961.
JAWS (1975)
Arguably the greatest man against beast movie of all time! A film thatmade generations of viewers afraid to go back into the water. When bodies start washing on-shore at a seaside resort town three men take to the seas to hunt down the great white shark responsible. A suspenseful Steven Spielberg story, and the iconic John Williams score, audiences were left quaking at the thought of the terror lurking just beneath the waves.
RAZORBACK (1984)
From the golden age of Ozploitation, Razorback is the gory tale of a giant wild boar on a murderous rampage across the outback. The film is based on the novel by Peter Brennan and helmed by veteran director Russell Mulcah. The film was written by renowned Australian genre screenwriter Everett De Roche. With a great team behind the camera, plenty of bloody gorging action front and centre and a fantastic practical boar hellbent on death and destruction, Razorback is a mega fun horror film with a large cult following. Recommended!
ANACONDA (1997)
Anaconda is certainly no Jaws and is often assigned to the ‘so-bad-it’s-good’ category, but with a diverse cast of familiar faces hamming it up with the OTT dialogue and an exotic amazon setting, this entertaining actioner has managed to find a well-deserved cult following. The film stars a pre-pop star Jennifer Lopez as a documentary filmmaker looking for a rare indigenous tribe deep in the jungle. Journeying up the Amazon river via boat, with a crew including Eric Stoltz, Ice Cube and Owen Wilson. The expedition comes across sinister snake hunter Jon Voight who soon takes control of the craft and sets his own agenda – to hunt and capture the world’s largest anaconda!
THE GREY (2011)
Liam Neeson was already on his way to a late-stage career reinvention as a grizzled man of action. Cemented further by chilly man vs. wolves thriller The Grey. Neeson plays a skilled marksman forced into leading the survival of a group of oil workers after their plane crashes in the Alaskan wilderness. Isolated and freezing, tensions run high and internal conflicts consume the men. The wolves, led by the clever ‘Alpha’ leader of the pack, are on the hunt…
CRAWL (2019)
Following a violent storm, Kaya Scodelario (Effy from Skins) is trapped in the basement of her father’s house, with a particularly aggressive gator. Quentin Tarantino said in November 2019 that it was his favorite film of the year. For a tense and thrilling throwback creature feature with plenty of teeth, look no further!
Which is your favorite Man Vs Beast Movies?
Primal is on Digital Download 10 February and DVD 17 February 2020 from Lionsgate UK
CLICK HERE to pre-order!
