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From Jaws to every ‘When Animals Attack’ movie that followed, cinema has been warning us for decades that nature doesn’t care about our vacation plans. Writer and director Johannes Roberts’ Primate swings back to those roots with a menace that isn’t lurking beneath the waves or circling a campsite, but rather awaits in the living room.
The high-concept hook gives a loveable family pet with opposable thumbs a rapidly dissolving moral compass. Yes, Primate is an evil monkey movie, and it relishes in this fact.
Serious Monkey Business
A bite from a rabid mongoose sends Ben, a highly intelligent and deeply caring chimpanzee, into a hydrophobic, hyper-violent spiral. Rabies, a disease that’s been terrifying humans since around 2300 BC, does the heavy lifting here by transforming affection into aggression. One moment, Ben is a lovable surrogate child, and the next, he’s going completely, well, ape.
Following the beats of a typical slasher, a remote luxury home on a Hawaiian cliff stands in for the cabin in the woods. With the parents out of town and a party in the works, a body count of hot-blooded teens breaks every cardinal rule to survive a horror movie. The killer is once again in the house; he just happens to be able to climb walls and swing from the ceiling. As the chimp adapts, outsmarts and retaliates against his increasingly doomed human co-stars, Roberts understands that simplicity is power. Primate knows there’s no need to over-explain.
Monkey See, Monkey Do
Let’s talk carnage. Roberts wastes no time getting to the good stuff. This is not a movie interested in restraint. The gore is front and centre, anchored by exceptional practical creature effects that give Ben a terrifying physical presence. There’s a weight to the violence that CGI alone just can’t match. Let’s just say, when someone gets their face ripped off, you feel it. The movie knows exactly how disposable it wants its humans to be and has fun proving it. As Ben, Miguel Torres Umba delivers a terrific performance that goes well beyond a man in a monkey suit, making Ben a believable chimpanzee that ultimately allows the movie to work.
What also elevates Primate beyond B-movie schlock is how it uses its characters, particularly Troy Kotsur’s Adam, a deaf novelist whose inability to hear danger approaching adds fresh layers of suspense. Horror has always thrived on what we can’t see, but much like Hush and A Quiet Place, Primate also adds what we can’t hear. The best and most nerve-rattling moments hit dread square on the head.
No Holds Barred
Primate goes all out in embracing its identity as a modern high-concept creature feature. It’s here to have fun, and it delivers a blast of bloody horror that knows exactly when to bare its teeth. For all its malicious monkey mayhem, you kind of feel bad for Ben. He is our closest living relative, after all. If only he had proper veterinary care, this whole thing could have been avoided. ★★★☆☆
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