This has to be, by far, the absolute worst movie I have seen in the last 20 years. When I saw that Michael Madsen was in it I figured it couldn't be too bad a movie since he has been in some pretty decent films, and he was a pretty fair actor. WRONG! No one should waste their time on this film. I fast forwarded through 80 percent of it and I don't feel that I missed a thing.
10 Reviews
Bad
alanaworld29 October 2006
This is not Michael Madsen's fault, he was hardly in it. This movie was just awful. If you want to laugh and be bored, go ahead and watch this movie. Words cannot describe how idiotic it is. Sorry Michael. The cinematography was dark. All the other actors are unknowns. When watching it, it feels like a soft porn, but with no nudity or heated scenes. This movie had sexual overtones, since it is about a underground S & M killer. The acting was bad, except Michael Madsen's parts. He looked like he wanted to laugh. I hope he got paid well for this lousy movie. It is something I would not be proud of. It is not even a B movie for cable, it is more like a F and it should never be shown, ever.
One of the worst films I have ever seen!
matosis21 October 2006
It is a pity that you cannot vote zero stars on IMDb, because I would not have hesitated! In fact I would go so far as to say that this film was in the negative stars.
I, like many others, bought this film thinking that because it has Michael Madsen in it, it could be good... No chance! This film was shocking! Imagine a movie length 'The Bold and the Beautiful', well, Primal Instinct did not even come close to that good, and I had previously thought that there would be nothing worse than a movie length 'The Bold and the Beautiful'.
Michael Madsen, how could you do this to us? The worst part is, I didn't fast forward a bit, I was hoping that at the end they would reveal that it was all some sort of sick joke, that they thought it would be funny to make us watch such a horribly bad film.
Where do I start...? Directing - Zero Stars, Screenplay - Zero Stars, Acting - Zero Stars, Cinematography - Zero Stars, Digital Effects - Zero Stars, Production Design - Zero Stars, Make-up - Zero Stars, Casting - Zero Stars, Editing - Zero Stars, Trailer - Half a Star, Graphic Design - Half a Star, DVD Menu - Half a Star.
However I think that it is very important to have seen bad films just so that you know what a really bad film is, so for that reason I am happy that I saw this film, just so that I have a bad film to put at the bottom of my list.
I, like many others, bought this film thinking that because it has Michael Madsen in it, it could be good... No chance! This film was shocking! Imagine a movie length 'The Bold and the Beautiful', well, Primal Instinct did not even come close to that good, and I had previously thought that there would be nothing worse than a movie length 'The Bold and the Beautiful'.
Michael Madsen, how could you do this to us? The worst part is, I didn't fast forward a bit, I was hoping that at the end they would reveal that it was all some sort of sick joke, that they thought it would be funny to make us watch such a horribly bad film.
Where do I start...? Directing - Zero Stars, Screenplay - Zero Stars, Acting - Zero Stars, Cinematography - Zero Stars, Digital Effects - Zero Stars, Production Design - Zero Stars, Make-up - Zero Stars, Casting - Zero Stars, Editing - Zero Stars, Trailer - Half a Star, Graphic Design - Half a Star, DVD Menu - Half a Star.
However I think that it is very important to have seen bad films just so that you know what a really bad film is, so for that reason I am happy that I saw this film, just so that I have a bad film to put at the bottom of my list.
One of the Lowest "Quality" movies of all time
Bison91118 March 2003
This has to be the worst movie I have seen. Madsen fans don't be drawn into this like I was. He is only in it for a maximum of five minutes. This movie is so bad that the only reason why you would watch it is if all the rest of the movies on earth as well as t.v. had been destroyed.
Crudely Obvious Production Succeeds Solely In Eating Up A Viewer's Time.
rsoonsa29 June 2007
A BDSM "sub-culture" of Los Angeles serves as backdrop for this low budget and shabbily constructed mess, plainly a vanity piece for its top-billed player, Celia Xavier, who also produces and scripts while performing a dual role as twin sisters Vanessa and Celia. A question soon develops as to whether or not some rather immoderate camera, lighting and editing pyrotechnics can ever reach a point of connection to a weak and often incoherent narrative that will not be taken seriously by a sensate viewer. Celia is employed as a highly motivated probation officer for the County of Los Angeles, while her evil natured twin has become an iconic figure within her fetishistic world largely because of erotic performances upon CD-ROMS, but when disaster befalls "Mistress Vanessa", virtuous Celia, determined to unearth her sister's vicious attacker, begins a new job as a "sex slave" at the private Castle Club where the specialty of the house is a "dungeon party". Two FBI field agents (whose deployment to the Vanessa case is ostensibly required due to her involvement with internet BDSM sites), in addition to a Los Angeles Police Department homicide detective, are assigned to investigate the crime, while endeavouring to provide security for Celia whose enthusiastic performance in her new vocation is avidly enough regarded by her customers as to have created conditions of personal danger for her. Flaws in logic and continuity abound, such as a homicide being allocated to L.A.P.D.'s Operations-South Bureau, a region of the metropolis that is far removed from the setting of the film. Direction is unfocused and not aided by erratic post-production editing and sound reproduction. The mentioned photographic gymnastics culminate with a batty montage near the movie's end of prior footage that is but tangentially referent to the scenario. One solid acting turn appears among this slag: Stan Abe as a zealous FBI agent.
Deadlier Than A Computer Virus
VonCouch24 May 2005
Warning: Spoilers
I just watched this film 15 minutes ago, and I still have no idea what I just watched. Mainly I think it's a film about an internet S&M "star" of CD Roms that are about as realistic as flash cartoons online. She's murdered by someone, which causes her sister and a crack team of 2 FBI agents to investigate the death. The local homicide division of Big City, USA is also investigating, though most of his work comes by the way of oogling the CD ROMs which he claims are as realistic "as the real thing". I know. Wow.
Michael Madsen is the only one in the film that has any kind of credits behind him. He's in the film for about 15 minutes, and half of that is him banging the main girl for seemingly no apparent reason. I won't even explain the ending, because quite frankly I can't make it out myself. But before the final scene, we're treated to a 3 or 4 minute montage of everything in the film. Honestly, they could have ran that then the final scene and it would have been the same effect with the cross eyed direction and all.
All in all, stay away from this film. I got it because I love bad movies and I love Michael Madsen. I really could have used that 80 some minutes on something else and have been more satisfied. Like, playing that game with a knife where you jab at your hand repeatedly. That for 80 minutes would be much more entertaining.
Michael Madsen is the only one in the film that has any kind of credits behind him. He's in the film for about 15 minutes, and half of that is him banging the main girl for seemingly no apparent reason. I won't even explain the ending, because quite frankly I can't make it out myself. But before the final scene, we're treated to a 3 or 4 minute montage of everything in the film. Honestly, they could have ran that then the final scene and it would have been the same effect with the cross eyed direction and all.
All in all, stay away from this film. I got it because I love bad movies and I love Michael Madsen. I really could have used that 80 some minutes on something else and have been more satisfied. Like, playing that game with a knife where you jab at your hand repeatedly. That for 80 minutes would be much more entertaining.
No matter what you call it, it still stinks
MBunge28 July 2010
Warning: Spoilers
Michael Madsen's involvement in the so-called movie indicates he either has an enormous drug habit and desperately needed money for another fix or that someone promised to perform upon him some extraordinarily rare and intensely difficult sexual maneuver if he took the role. I can't conceive of another reason that could justify a guy who was in Reservoir Dogs getting involved in this haphazard Terducken of a film. We're talking Ed Wood-level bad here, but without Ed Wood-level energy and enthusiasm.
To the extent I could understand a story that frequently doesn't understand itself, this is a movie about twin sisters. Vanessa (Celia Xavier) is an internet porn star who specializes in bondage and discipline. She hungers for fame and burns with contempt for the losers and misfits who slobber and expel other certain bodily fluids over her performances. Cinda (Celia Xavier) is a probation officer. We know she's a probation officer because she wears a shirt that says "Probation" on the back of it and she has a boss who chews her out for showing up the other officers by actually caring about her job. Cinda is ignorant of her sister's profession and lifestyle until she gets a call from the cops about her sister being killed. This is an important point. The cops not only say Vanessa is dead, the lead detective says an autopsy is being done on her body.
Wanting to know what happened to her twin, Cinda plunges into the world of sex clubs and sadomasochism, encountering a dominatrix named Olga (Lada Boder), a crazed fan of Vanessa named Dean (Jordan Liddle) and discovering her ex-husband Eliott (Edgar Allen Poe IV) made cd-rom computer sex games starring Vanessa. She also encounters an FBI agent named Sato (Stan Abe) who works out of a travel agent's office and his boss Russ (Michael Madsen).
It's hard for me to go any further into the plot of Primal Instinct. Not because I'm afraid of giving anything away, but because the movie makes almost no sense. I don't mean the plot is illogical or unrealistic, though it is. I mean it actually makes no sense. You remember how the cops said Vanessa was dead and an autopsy was being done on her body? Well, there's even a shot of a newspaper where the investigation into Vanessa's murder is front page news and video footage of her murder (which the audience never really sees) is streamed over the internet. Then the movie simply forgets all of that and suddenly Vanessa's body hasn't been found and the audience is supposed to wonder if she's really dead or not. But after that, the movie ignores the mystery and goes back to treating Vanessa's death like it really happened. It's like Celia Xavier never bothered to read this script as she was writing it. She establishes the reality of Vanessa's demise but at about page 65 she forgets what she's already wrote and decides to make a mystery out of it but about 30 pages after that she forgets she made a mystery out of it and goes back to treating Vanessa's death as established fact.
That inability to grasp even the most basic elements of storytelling is a near perfect symbol of how cruddy Primal Instinct is. The camera-work, editing and sound in this film is worse than what you would get from the A/V club at a high school for the mentally challenged. The acting is barely high school play quality as well, except for Michael Madsen. Even though he appears to be trying to act as little as humanly possible, his talent still outshines everyone else in the cast put together. Of course, everyone else in the cast appears to have read the script, while Madsen seems to just say and do whatever the hell he feels like at the moment.
You also might think from what I've described that Primal Instinct is some sort of erotic thriller. Be warned, however. Cinda doesn't get naked. Vanessa doesn't get naked. Olga doesn't get naked. I n fact, none of the characters in this movie get naked. They don't even have sex with their clothes on. I almost thought this was secretly some Christian film, until I saw a disembodied boob during a crappy video montage. So I have no idea what's going on with the lack of nudity.
Primal Instinct is the sort of thing that makes you hate technological progress. This movie got made because people with no talent and no money could get their hands on cheap, simple and reliable video and sound equipment. If the advance of science is going to produce boring, pointless garbage like this that might be enough to turn Steve Jobs into a Luddite.
To the extent I could understand a story that frequently doesn't understand itself, this is a movie about twin sisters. Vanessa (Celia Xavier) is an internet porn star who specializes in bondage and discipline. She hungers for fame and burns with contempt for the losers and misfits who slobber and expel other certain bodily fluids over her performances. Cinda (Celia Xavier) is a probation officer. We know she's a probation officer because she wears a shirt that says "Probation" on the back of it and she has a boss who chews her out for showing up the other officers by actually caring about her job. Cinda is ignorant of her sister's profession and lifestyle until she gets a call from the cops about her sister being killed. This is an important point. The cops not only say Vanessa is dead, the lead detective says an autopsy is being done on her body.
Wanting to know what happened to her twin, Cinda plunges into the world of sex clubs and sadomasochism, encountering a dominatrix named Olga (Lada Boder), a crazed fan of Vanessa named Dean (Jordan Liddle) and discovering her ex-husband Eliott (Edgar Allen Poe IV) made cd-rom computer sex games starring Vanessa. She also encounters an FBI agent named Sato (Stan Abe) who works out of a travel agent's office and his boss Russ (Michael Madsen).
It's hard for me to go any further into the plot of Primal Instinct. Not because I'm afraid of giving anything away, but because the movie makes almost no sense. I don't mean the plot is illogical or unrealistic, though it is. I mean it actually makes no sense. You remember how the cops said Vanessa was dead and an autopsy was being done on her body? Well, there's even a shot of a newspaper where the investigation into Vanessa's murder is front page news and video footage of her murder (which the audience never really sees) is streamed over the internet. Then the movie simply forgets all of that and suddenly Vanessa's body hasn't been found and the audience is supposed to wonder if she's really dead or not. But after that, the movie ignores the mystery and goes back to treating Vanessa's death like it really happened. It's like Celia Xavier never bothered to read this script as she was writing it. She establishes the reality of Vanessa's demise but at about page 65 she forgets what she's already wrote and decides to make a mystery out of it but about 30 pages after that she forgets she made a mystery out of it and goes back to treating Vanessa's death as established fact.
That inability to grasp even the most basic elements of storytelling is a near perfect symbol of how cruddy Primal Instinct is. The camera-work, editing and sound in this film is worse than what you would get from the A/V club at a high school for the mentally challenged. The acting is barely high school play quality as well, except for Michael Madsen. Even though he appears to be trying to act as little as humanly possible, his talent still outshines everyone else in the cast put together. Of course, everyone else in the cast appears to have read the script, while Madsen seems to just say and do whatever the hell he feels like at the moment.
You also might think from what I've described that Primal Instinct is some sort of erotic thriller. Be warned, however. Cinda doesn't get naked. Vanessa doesn't get naked. Olga doesn't get naked. I n fact, none of the characters in this movie get naked. They don't even have sex with their clothes on. I almost thought this was secretly some Christian film, until I saw a disembodied boob during a crappy video montage. So I have no idea what's going on with the lack of nudity.
Primal Instinct is the sort of thing that makes you hate technological progress. This movie got made because people with no talent and no money could get their hands on cheap, simple and reliable video and sound equipment. If the advance of science is going to produce boring, pointless garbage like this that might be enough to turn Steve Jobs into a Luddite.
Remember 8mm? This is 2mm.
kargman25 January 2003
You can always tell a B-movie that takes BDSM for a theme is gonna be a stinker when it quickly becomes clear that the filmmakers don't know the difference between bondage and SM, because they use the terms interchangeably. If the plot involves an SM snuff flick, you know it's gonna be an evil stinker.
Primal Instinct is the story of a parole officer investigating the death of her sister, who was a bondage site model. The portrayal of the bondage site reveals that the creators had never been on the Internet, much less visited a porn site, and had gotten all their info about what porn sites are like from the real-life equivalents of Maude Flanders.
This film is even more mean-spirited, stupid and ignorant about its subject matter than 8mm was. (8mm also deals with an investigation of the death of a professional woman specializing in BDSM whose death shows up in a snuff flick.) Primal Instinct is not the worst movie ever made but it does suck in every respect. Michael Madsen and the female lead do their best, but god, it just isn't even close to being enough to stand down the cretinous dreck that's being shovelled here.
Primal Instinct is the story of a parole officer investigating the death of her sister, who was a bondage site model. The portrayal of the bondage site reveals that the creators had never been on the Internet, much less visited a porn site, and had gotten all their info about what porn sites are like from the real-life equivalents of Maude Flanders.
This film is even more mean-spirited, stupid and ignorant about its subject matter than 8mm was. (8mm also deals with an investigation of the death of a professional woman specializing in BDSM whose death shows up in a snuff flick.) Primal Instinct is not the worst movie ever made but it does suck in every respect. Michael Madsen and the female lead do their best, but god, it just isn't even close to being enough to stand down the cretinous dreck that's being shovelled here.
R Rating for this one should R for rotten
photobob749-124 August 2005
The only redeeming part of this movie was the price I paid. At least all I lost was $3.00 and the time elapsed sitting through this bomb. The crew member who was in charge of continuity missed the boat. When the female lead and the FBI guy went to the alleged killers location, Mr. FBI handed the female a revolver. When the alleged killer came out the door, the revolver has magically transformed into an automatic. One is left to ponder would an FBP agent hand a weapon to a civilian? I think not. Ms. Xavier appears to be a very attractive female. It is too bad the R rating did not allow much of her to be seen. It would seem that a film editor cut what might have been the best parts of the film out.
nominee for worst movie ever
RICHM36216 November 2002
I agree totally with the last commenter this could be the worst movie ever made .I too had to fast forward through most of this movie. Michael Madsen must have done this movie as a favor to someone.The picture quality is grainy all the way through .And what little plot there is,is just plain stupid .I give this movie a 1 out of 10 if I could give it a lower score I would .Don't waste your time on this movie or you'll regret it.
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