Title: Primate
Describe This Movie In One Simpsons Screen Capture:
Brief Plot Synopsis: I hate every ape I see. From chimpan-A to chimpan-Z.
Rating Using Random Objects Relevant To The Film: 3 Jack Torrances out of 5.
Tagline: “Something’s wrong with Ben.”
Better Tagline: “Cujo goes bananas.”
Not So Brief Plot Synopsis: Lucy (Johnny Sequoyah) is returning to her father and sister in Hawaii for the first (?) time since her mother’s death. Along for the ride are her best friend Kate (Victoria Wyant) and Kate’s free-spirited pal Hannah (Jess Alexander). Lucy gets a cold reception from little sister Erin (Gia Hunter), while dad Adam (Troy Kotsur) is going to the city for a book tour. And let’s not forget Ben, the family’s chimpanzee, who seems to be feeling a bit under the weather.
“Critical” Analysis: If there was a lesson to be learned from Tiger King — the Netflix documentary everyone watched because we were in COVID lockdown and there was nothing else on — it was that keeping wild animals as pets is pretty stupid.* But you don’t need a Netflix doc for that. Just read any of the periodic news stories about undomesticated beasts mauling or killing humans.
Enter Primate. Director Johannes Roberts has shown he knows his way around both creature (47 Meters Down) and single location (The Strangers: Prey at Night) horror. And for most of the movie, we’re in good hands. You can even accept Ben’s presence in the home, as he was raised with Lucy’s family from infancy in the charge of her linguist mother. He’s also adept at communicating, both in sign language (in deference to deaf Adam) and using a device. Unsurprisingly, the latter will be reintroduced to creepy effect later in the movie.
Ben’s heel turn doesn’t come unprompted. Adam notices a bite on his arm, courtesy of a mongoose Ben subsequently kills. And if his decision to continue with his business trip in spite of that seems nonchalant, it’s because Hawaii is the only rabies-free state in the US (it’s true). That said, Roberts never explains where the mongoose came from, or how it contracted the disease. Whatever, man. Those faces aren’t going to traumatize themselves.
I’m not really spoiling anything, promise. Primate’s opening scrawl gives us a history of hydrophobia, then tells us it’s fatal if not treated in 48 hours. You don’t need to be Jane Goodall to figure out where things are going.
Roberts perfunctorily introduces family tension before generally abandoning it once the ape action begins. Erin is wounded early on and the youths makes the pool their refuge (Ben can’t swim) while trying to plan their escape. This isn’t easy, as Primate would have us believe some of rabies’ side effects are stealth and ironic cruelty. It certainly turns Ben into a sadistic asshole, but I have my doubts.
But you don’t care about all that fancy edumacation anyway. After a pre-credits kill, Roberts puts the brakes on to introduce our potential victims. But once Bonzo — er, Ben — starts goin’ ape (i.e. inflicting grievous bodily trauma on Lucy’s friends), the action ramps up. Primate’s kills are suitably gnarly, and kudos to Alexander for turning the initially aggravating Hannah into one of the movie’s most capable characters. The performances aren’t going to win any Oscars (Kotsur already has one anyway), but the protagonists don’t make that many dumbass mistakes.
In the pantheon of great ape movies about … great apes, Primate is not, really. Still, Sequoyah (Dexter: New Blood) anchors the story well, and the casting directors did right making her sisters with Hunter. Roberts keeps the stakes high by stacking the deck with likeable characters (with two notable exceptions). It won’t truly turn us into a planet of apes, but you could do a lot worse for a January horror film.
*Another lesson would be that Presidential pardons aren’t forthcoming for gay dudes.
This article appears in Private: Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2026.