As a creature feature, Primate gets a lot of things right by simplifying the story and putting the horror at the center. Director Johannes Roberts and screenwriter Ernest Riera, alongside Roberts, removes all the unnecessary story and puts the focus on serving some delicious scares. It’s a tight film at 89 minutes, quickly going over the exposition so the thrills can start as soon as possible. The film works because of this narrative economy and it amps up the joy of screaming your guts out at every turn.
Primate follows Lucy (Johnny Sequoyah), who returns home to Hawaii during a college break with her good friend Kate (Victoria Wyant) and Kate’s friend Hannah (Jessica Alexander). Lucy hasn’t gone home in a while because of her dad, Adam (Troy Kotsur), a popular deaf author who is rarely home. Lucy’s absence is felt strongly by her sister, Erin (Gia Hunter).
To Hannah’s surprise, she discovers that Lucy’s family has adopted a chimpanzee, Ben, who has been taught sign language and can “speak” through an ipad. There are variables involved like Kate’s brother Nick (Benjamin Cheng), who is Lucy’s crush, and two guys they meet on the plane, whom they might invite over to party with them as Lucy’s dad leaves – yet again – for another book event.
All of this unfolds quickly, with the friends all partying while Lucy’s dad is away, completely unaware that Ben has been bitten and contracted rabies. When Ben goes feral and starts attacking, the teens are stranded in the pool – because Ben can’t swim and most likely afraid of water – away from their phones, while a rabid, intelligent chimpanzee lurks, just waiting to tear them apart.
Roberts and Riera do a clean job of showing us the size and scale of the house, which becomes a death trap for these teens. The characters are typical but not annoying, and their reactions to the situation are apropos to the dangers they are in.
So you might not like the characters for whatever reason, but you can’t help empathizing with them because it is such a horrible situation to find yourself in.
Roberts has a natural feel for this kind of horror – making use of darkness, tight shots, the absence of music, and the idea that a chimpanzee is extremely mobile and strong – that makes every scene a tension-filled exercise in pure horror.
And the horror is gruesome. It is bloody and brutal. When I watched, women were screaming and men were too, though they were also cheering when heads were bashed and skin torn from the flesh.
This is a film that pulls no punches. It’s as edgy as a horror film should be and because the film never weighed itself down with unnecessary plot points – the family drama is never overplayed, the slight romance angle between Lucy and Nick is quickly shut down before the film’s inciting incident – the only thing we have to focus on is whether these kids will survive.
The film sort of gives a nod to the classic horror novel (and film) Cujo by Stephen King with the film adaptation directed by Lewis Teague. But Primate comes off equally scary – if not scarier – because the chimpanzee is smart and strong and fast, while Cujo is only really two of the three.
At the same time, there is a faint recognition of family as Ben grew up with Lucy, so much so that even Kate and Nick know quite a lot about him. While Lucy and the rest are not keen to go easy on the ape, that adds an extra tinge of pain running through the story. It almost feels like betrayal.
I could go on about how the film seems to mock humans trying to upset the natural order—teaching an animal human language and treating it as family—but that argument doesn’t fully hold up. Chimps are intelligent, can be trained to communicate, and we naturally love our pets as part of the family. More importantly, the film isn’t trying to make a deeper point; it’s focused on delivering some genuinely thrilling scares. And in that, it succeeds spectacularly. Primate is a ton of fun and probably best experienced in the cinema with friends.
My Rating: 4 Stars
Primate delivers heart-pounding scares, a smart and terrifying chimpanzee, and pure adrenaline. Check showtimes near you and scream along with your friends in theaters now!
