Primate (dir. Johannes Roberts)
Certificate: 18
Running Time: 89 mins
UK Distributor: Paramount Pictures
UK Release Date: 30 January 2026
WHO’S IN PRIMATE?
Johnny Sequoyah, Jessica Alexander, Troy Kotsur, Victoria Wyant, Gia Hunter, Benjamin Cheng, Charlie Mann, Tienne Simon, Miguel Torres Umba, Kae Alexander, Amina Abdi, Albert Magashi
WHO’S BEHIND THE CAMERA?
Johannes Roberts (director, writer), Ernest Riera (writer), Walter Hamada, John Hodges and Bradley Pilz (producers), Adrian Johnston (composer), Stephen Murphy (cinematographer), Peter Gvozdas (editor)
WHAT’S IT ABOUT?
A rabid pet chimp goes on a deadly killing spree…
WHAT ARE MY THOUGHTS ON PRIMATE?
The greatest thing about director and co-writer Johannes Roberts’ killer chimpanzee movie Primate is how uncomplicated it is. There is no deep commentary on science vs. nature, no unnecessarily detailed backstory that explains why said chimp ends up behaving the way it does, not even a surprise twist that reveals how it is ultimately man who is the real beast. Instead, the film delivers exactly what it says on the tin: a gruesome Halloween-style slasher movie with a rabid chimp in the Michael Myers role, no more and no less.
One’s enjoyment of Primate will therefore very much depend on whether or not you can buy into such an immediately ridiculous premise. Of course, there have been killer simians in cinemas many times before – most recently during an extremely memorable sequence in Jordan Peele’s Nope – but few have centralised the concept in such a way where it almost feels like you’re watching a low-rent B-movie, the kind that would have been made under Cannon Films a few decades prior, when such ridiculousness would probably have been easier for audiences to swallow than today.
Luckily, though, I was quickly able to accept that this is the kind of film that it is, and because of that I found myself rewarded with a fun and sometimes pretty intense horror that revels in its refreshing eagerness to get right to the point. So much so, in fact, that by the time it properly begins – after a brief and frankly pointless prologue that’s only there to provide gore in the first few minutes before cutting back to several hours earlier – the chimp at its centre, Ben (portrayed by Miguel Torres Umba in a practical chimp suit), is already turning rabid, having been bitten by an infected mongoose off-screen.
Ben, by the way, is the highly intelligent chimpanzee pet of a family living in Hawaii, having been taken in by a since-passed linguist and taught how to communicate via soundboards and sign language, which comes in handy given that the linguist’s husband, novelist Adam (Troy Kotsur) is deaf. Things really kick into gear when Adam’s eldest daughter Lucy (Johnny Sequoyah), her friends Kate (Victoria Wyant) and Nick (Benjamin Cheng), and even her frenemy Hannah (Jessica Alexander) all arrive home together from college, which happens to be exactly when Ben’s rabies begin to take full effect and, with Adam away on a book tour, begins to brutally attack Lucy, her younger sister Erin (Gia Hunter) and the others over the course of a terrifying night.
Even for such a bonkers concept, Primate takes itself seriously in not taking itself seriously, proudly delivering graphic violence and sinister mayhem that could almost rival one of the more outlandish Friday the 13th entries. Roberts wastes very little time in igniting the core plot, speed-running through all the basic character development – estranged sisters, backstabbing friends and the like – before unleashing Ben upon all of them, and the director does well to keep much of the carnage contained and focused without deviating too far from its set path. Case in point, we’re treated to an extremely gnarly death scene mere minutes after the studio logos that’s almost like something out of a Lucio Fulci movie, complete with impressive practical effects that make it feel so much more horrifying to watch, and it’s not too long after that Ben makes a few more gruesome murder attempts that are far more extreme than the movie you may be picturing in your head, one where certain characters aren’t quite as brutally offed by this crazed chimp as they actually are.
It is a shockingly violent movie, but rather than refraining from venturing into full-on exploitation territory, Roberts embraces his B-movie inspirations to a point where scenes of people’s jaws being completely ripped off are shot with the heightened filmmaking styles of other classic giallo horror filmmakers like Dario Argento (who, funnily enough, also featured a killer chimp in his 1985 film Phenomena, one that famously bit off part of young Jennifer Connelly’s fingers during production). The director, again, does well to frame certain shots in ways where you really are intimidated by this chimp, and the fact that Ben is actually there as opposed to being a fully CGI creation adds to the immediacy of his menace, because the looks of fear on his fellow actors’ faces feel so much more real since they’re reacting in real time to his snarling serial killer vibes rather than simply imagining him in place of some tennis balls on a pole. Roberts is clearly having such a blast leaning into his B-movie concept and inspiration that his enthusiasm rubs off onto the viewer, who similarly can enjoy scenes of people being terrorised and occasionally murdered by the chimp that is a lot more unsettling than one may think.
However, some crucial storytelling flaws do hinder its ultimate impact. The main characters, particularly the college students, aren’t very interesting with bland personalities that could honestly be interchanged between any of them without making any real difference, while the overall structure can become repetitive after a short while since there’s only so many places within this limited setting that they can hide from Ben (they spend a lot of time in this swimming pool since the chimp is conveniently afraid of water). Since there’s very little to these characters, with next to no backstory given to them due to the keenness of getting right to the monkey business, you don’t really care all that much when some of them end up in Ben’s crosshairs, and with the film remaining in mostly just one location it becomes easier to spot some of the inconsistencies in how certain people act in the face of genuine danger, for one bit of quick-thinking or covert movement and this whole movie would be over in seconds.
But frankly, you don’t go to movies like Primate to point out how it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, because you already know you’re in for something silly – it’s a movie about a chimp that gets rabies and becomes a slasher villain, for crying out loud – and just want it to deliver on its profound silliness. Thankfully, it knows exactly what kind of movie it is and, whether or not you’re along for the ride like I was, deserves a good amount of respect for its own level of self-awareness.
SO, TO SUM UP…
Primate is an entertainingly silly B-movie horror that is refreshingly uncomplicated with its central concept of a killer chimp, delivering enough gruesome violence and often intense filmmaking while still leaving room for its lesser elements, like underdeveloped characters and a repetitive structure, to form an imperfect yet enjoyable watch.
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