“Primate” (2026) Review
Director: Johannes Roberts Screenwriter: Johannes Roberts, Ernest Riera Cast: Johnny Sequoyah, Jessica Alexander, Victoria Wyant, Gia Hunter, Benjamin Cheng, Troy Kotsur Distributor: Paramount Pictures Running Time: 89 min. MPAA: R
How I wish a movie like Primate had graced the video store shelves of the 1990s, advertised with a terrifying cover of a screaming chimpanzee, thirsty for blood. It would tantalize my eyes with every visit, speculating on what could possibly happen in that movie, its cover just alluring enough to linger in the mind for maybe a nightmare or two. Then I’d eventually watch it years later, only to discover it came exactly as advertised, no more, no less.
The premise is built specifically for a creature feature, more by design than for its human characters, ready to be fed into the slasher movie grinder. A group of college friends ventures off to the Hawaiian estate of Lucy (Johnny Sequoyah) and her deaf father, Adam (Troy Kotsur). With Adam leaving for a book tour, Lucy is hoping for a fun time with her friends, getting drunk at a lavish cliffside house with a pool. Oh, and Adam’s resident chimpanzee, Ben. He’s a friendly chimp, until rabies enters the equation and the adorable pet turns into the violent killer advertised.
There isn’t much to the characters in this onslaught of the brutal, where Lucy’s ensemble is just worthy enough for her to care about, ranging from her sister Erin (Gia Hunter) to the cute boy Nick (Benjamin Cheng), whom she might ask out. The pieces are put in place for establishing the location as one where someone could take a tumble off the cliff or scurry through the corners of the house when fleeing a murderous animal. The 12-year-old in me is itching to press fast-forward amid the first act’s meticulous setup, and the bog-standard booze bash has the adult in me agreeing. Where my two halves can meet is in the second half when Ben’s carnage arrives with all its shocking moments of heads being bashed open and hair being torn from heads. Thank goodness the opening scene teases Ben ripping some flesh off a face to let you know some quality gore is on the way.
For a movie to lack character but boast gore, it’s got to be a pretty juicy gumbo of blood and guts. It’s not a bad recipe. The stakes are immediate, and the location leads to plenty of tense scenes where the cowering college friends seek safety in the pool or hide in the closet. There aren’t too many smarts to be had in trying to outwit a chimp that wants to kill and knows enough about electronics and the layout to deceive anyone who escapes his choking grip and bone-shattering fists. Most of the characters only exist for a quality kill, and it’s hard to argue that with the results of a drunk visitor who has his jaw ripped out.
Primate is little more than a killer chimpanzee movie, but an admirably bloody killer chimpanzee at that. I’m sure many coming into this film wouldn’t expect much more than that, and the effects are of sufficient quality to overlook the ho-hum framing of its ingredients. Would it have been more compelling if there were more to the characters than a loose assortment of quirks before the chimp rampage drops? Absolutely, but I can’t be too dismayed that all the effort for this picture went into the core reason many would buy a ticket, tap rent, or pluck it off the shelf. Like Michael Blooth opening up the bag labeled as “Dead Dove,” you can’t be too surprised at a film where the most thought was placed into how well a primate can murder a group of college kids.
