Best Dinosaur Movie Since Jurassic Park's Sequel Update Is Exactly What Horror Fans Want To Hear

After a successful limited theatrical run and months of build online, the team behind the Australian sci-fi horror movie Primitive War announced a sequel is already in the works. Primitive War 2 is set to follow up on the Vietnam War soldiers vs. deadly dinosaurs concept with a story that picks up shortly after the explosive action concluded in the original.

Primitive War was made on a shockingly low budget, which makes its impressive critical and audience scores even more impressive. It currently holds a 65% Tomatometer score along with an 86% Popcornmeter score, with critics and moviegoers agreeing on the movie's entertainment value and surprisingly excellent visuals considering it was reportedly made for well under $10 million.

In the opinion of many, Primitive War carried more entertainment value than its competitor at the cinema in 2025, Jurassic World Rebirth. With no pulled punches when it comes to grisly carnage and legitimately scary dinosaur designs, horror fans embraced it as a cult classic, considering it never got a wide release. Horror fans can rejoice, as what we now learned about the sequel indicates it'll up the ante from the original.

Director Luke Sparke Promises An Even Darker Sequel

Per Variety, Primitive War 2 is officially in the works, and is already late in its development with an eye on 2027 for a release date. Luke Sparke, who also served as editor, production designer, and VFX supervisor in addition to director on the original film, teased what audiences can expect from the sequel:

“The first film was about discovery,” Sparke said in a statement. “This is about escalation — what happens when control is lost, when nature adapts faster than military doctrine and when the war itself becomes secondary to what’s been unleashed.”

Sparke has positioned the sequel as a darker, more intense continuation of the story of Primitive War, which saw a Russian experiment gone wrong bring dinosaurs from the past into the jungles of the Vietnam War via a wormhole. The narrative was marked by graphic, brutal kills from its array of predatory dinosaurs, showing in detail what the Jurassic Park franchise typically hides off-screen.

The sequel will take the story to an even darker place, introducing a new platoon of U.S. soldiers struggling for survival in the increasingly unstable valley from which the dinosaurs first arrived. As a more "grounded" story, Primitive War 2 should be exactly what fans of the first movie are looking for in a sequel, increasing the intensity while maintaining what made the first movie great.

Primitive War's Horror Elements Are What Make The Franchise So Exciting

While Primitive War is not a direct competitor for the Jurassic Park franchise given their vastly different intentions (and production budgets), comparisons were inevitable with the latest entry in the iconic franchise releasing in the same year as the original. The key difference between the two is how gory and delightfully over-the-top the dinosaur action is.

Primitive War embraces not only the horror of war, but the actual horror of trying to escape from vicious predatory dinosaurs without the aid of plot armor. Nobody is safe in the Primitive War franchise, making each kill scene that much more intense. Scenes that include disemboweling at the claws of a deinonychus or being ripped to shreds by a massive quetzalcoatlus are legitimately terrifying, which is why horror fans embraced the original.

It remains to be seen how much of the Ethan Pettus novels that Primitive War is based on will be adapted in Primitive War 2, but no matter what direction Sparke takes the movie in, horror fans are sure to be pleased. An escalation of the intense sci-fi horror action with a darker angle is an exciting direction for the franchise to move in.