Primate (2025/2026)

DIRECTED BY

Johannes Roberts

STARRING

Johnny Sequoyah - Lucy

Troy Kotsur - Adam 

Jessica Alexander - Hannah

Victoria Wyant - Kate 

Gia Hunter - Erin 

Benjamin Cheng - Nick

Genre: Horror/Thriller/Bad Animals

Running Time: 89 Minutes

PLOT

Home from college, Lucy reunites with family including pet chimp Ben. Ben contracts rabies during a pool party and turns aggressive. Lucy and friends barricade in a pool, devising ways to survive the vicious chimp.

REVIEW

2026 begins just like 2025 did - highlighting apes for the first chunk of the year. Last year, we had two solid films in the Robbie Williams’ biopic BETTER MAN [in which Williams envisions himself as a CGI man-ape] and Osgood Perkins’ underrated THE MONKEY [one of my favorite horror films of 2025]. This year, the horror genre kicks off its movie year with Paramount’s PRIMATE - a film I’ve seen the trailer for countless times, with various audiences either laughing at it or groaning about the premise. I honestly wasn’t expecting much out of this film, but with a high Rotten Tomatoes score and solid word of mouth, it got me a bit excited for some chimp vs. human action. And yes, the hype is real because PRIMATE is a really fun time at the cinema.

The easy way to describe PRIMATE is “CUJO but with a chimpanzee”. The inspiration is fairly obvious, as our chimp Ben gets bitten by a rabid mongoose while in his enclosure, causing Ben to lash out at his human family and terrorize them in their own home. Ben gets more violent and relentless while the human characters either make smart [or in a lot of cases, dumb] decisions in order to survive while debating how to handle an innocent, yet sick, chimp.

Survival films like PRIMATE are pretty hard to mess up, as it's an easy premise that doesn’t require a whole lot of human characterization while mainly focusing on the battle between animal and human. The lack of real character development does hurt the film a bit, as you don’t really get to attach to the characters as much as one would like. The deepest we get is that eldest daughter Lucy is a bit estranged from the family due to the death of her mother. Lucy’s younger sister, Erin, is a bit upset with her while their deaf father has taken over their mother’s businesses and becomes an almost absentee dad because of it. Lucy has a supportive best friend in Hannah, while Hannah’s brother Nick is Lucy’s crush. That romance subplot is thwarted by Hannah’s friend Kate, who is kind of the mean girl of the group and doesn’t understand why Lucy would have a chimp as a pet. There are also a couple of boys that the group meets, who are just around to raise the body count. Other than that, it’s just a tale of surviving the night against a rabid chimp who has no issue hurting the family that took care of him.

Johannes Roberts, probably best known as the director who gave us RESIDENT EVIL: WELCOME TO RACCOON CITY, THE STRANGERS: PREY AT NIGHT, and 47 METERS DOWN, really does a fantastic job with building tension, suspense and dread once Ben is bitten and becomes insanely vicious towards his human counterparts. While the premise may seem silly to some, Roberts really brings out the terror in many scenes, portraying events as if it’s a slasher film with Ben stalking and attacking anyone he considers a threat. The film takes place within a day and mostly at night, adding a bleak atmosphere that makes you wonder if anyone is going to get out alive. The musical score is used impressively to elevate the tension, while the gore effects [and there are a lot of them] are done through CGI but it never takes away the effect of watching Ben rip jaws from faces and bash people’s heads in without a care. Roberts reminds us that while chimps are cute creatures, they’re also extremely unpredictable and dangerous. A chunk of the film has characters stuck inside a swimming pool after a character is bitten by Ben, while the chimp sits outside the pool watching them while struggling with his disease. It could have come off boring, but Roberts keeps you invested with solid pacing and care to detail. I thought he did a great job with PRIMATE.

The acting won’t win any awards, but I felt everyone did a solid job in making the situation super believable. I thought Johnny Sequoyah was a good Final Girl type as Lucy, as she’s given the most to do and has the most agency amongst the characters. She comes across as likable, caring and tough. I also liked Oscar winner Troy Kotsur as the father, Adam. He’s not in the film a whole lot but I liked how Johannes Roberts used his real-life deafness to build a ton of suspense, as Adam was unable to hear the terror that surrounded him. It made things frustrating and nail-biting at the same time, which I appreciated. Victoria Wyant stood out as mean girl Kate, having the best one-liners and just standing out from the more nicer characters. She also had one of the best horror moments in the film with Ben. Speaking of Ben, actor Miguel Torres Umba did the motion capture for the chimp and I thought he did an amazing job. While it’s obvious the cast and crew wouldn’t allow a real animal to perform the things Ben does in the film, I never questioned whether Ben was a real monkey or a human portraying him. Super impressed for sure.

THE FINAL HOWL

2026 is starting out in the right way as PRIMATE is a solid start to the horror genre this year. While the characters aren’t really much to discuss about, the premise of having humans try to survive against a rabid chimp makes up for it, as the film is a thrilling ride right from the opening minutes. Tense, suspenseful, gory, well acted and directed, PRIMATE may not make you go fully bananas but it’s definitely some monkey business worth checking out either in theaters or down the line on streaming. 

SCORE

3 Howls Outta 4

(7 out of 10)