Primate
Writer/director Johannes Roberts’ monkey business knows when to bare its teeth.
Monkey See, Monkey Do: Jessica Alexander and Miguel Torres Umba
Image courtesy of Paramount Pictures.
by CHAD KENNERK
From Jaws to every ‘When Animals Attack’ movie since, stories of nature run amok continue to capture our imaginations and fuel our nightmares. It’s a horror subgenre that writer/director Johannes Roberts knows well, having previously trapped audiences 47 Meters Down in shark-infested waters and again in the underwater Mayan ruins of 47 Meters Down: Uncaged. Roberts’ latest creature feature, Primate, swings back to even earlier roots in the genre, trading great whites for great apes. Whether stop-motion, CGI, or simply a man in a mask, monkeys have been making movies since the days of thier ancestral maverick King Kong. Primate plays like a descendant of that canonical creature with a high-concept hook that pits beauty against beast.
A remote luxury home on a Hawaiian cliff stands in for the traditional cabin in the woods as Lucy Pinborough (Johnny Sequoyah) returns home for summer break and reunites with her sister and novelist father Adam (Troy Kotsur). Also counted among the family is Ben, a highly intelligent, loveable pet chimpanzee who was once the protégé of Lucy’s late mother, a linguistics professor. Adam leaves on a work trip and Lucy invites friends to party by the infinity pool — it’s easy to see where all of this is going. When a bite from a rabid mongoose transforms Ben into a violent hydrophobic, Lucy and a body count of hot-blooded college kids break every cardinal rule to surviving a horror movie. Following the beats of a typical slasher, the killer is once again in the house; he just happens to be able to climb walls and swing from the ceiling.
Roberts leans into the no-frills genre storytelling, which is something of a refreshing shift from the heady arthouse horror that’s been dominating as of late. Once night falls, the luxury house and its lush surroundings start to function like a trap, with the architecture itself turning deadly. Like James Cameron, Roberts finds a way to return to the water, turning the pool into one of the only (relatively) safe spaces as survivors tread water, trapped by gravity and exhaustion. As the chimp adapts, outsmarts and retaliates against his increasingly doomed human co-stars, Roberts understands that simplicity is power. Primate is an evil monkey movie, and as evil monkey movies go, it does a decent job of delivering on its premise and certainly delivers on its 18 certificate/R rating. There’s a weight to the violence here and a glee to the gore that CGI alone would have missed. Exceptional practical creature effects give Ben a terrifying physical presence. As Ben, Miguel Torres Umba delivers a terrific performance that goes well beyond a man in a monkey suit, presenting an entirely believable chimpanzee that carries the conceit.
What also elevates Primate beyond B-movie schlock is how it uses its characters, particularly Troy Kotsur’s Adam, as a deaf dad 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. Roberts’ best and most nerve-rattling moments hit dread square on the head, but the rest of the time is just bloody fun. Primate goes full ape in embracing its identity as a modern high-concept creature feature. For all its monkey mayhem, it's hard not to sympathise with poor Ben. He is our closest living relative, after all. To think, with proper attention and veterinary care, the whole mess could have been avoided.
Cast: Johnny Sequoyah, Jessica Alexander, Troy Kotsur, Victoria Wyant, Gia Hunter, Benjamin Cheng, Charlie Mann, Tienne Simon, Miguel Torres Umba.
Dir Johannes Roberts, Pro Walter Hamada, John Hodges, Bradley Pilz, Screenplay Johannes Roberts, Ernest Riera, Ph Stephen Murphy, Ed Peter Gvozdas, Music Adrian Johnston, Costumes Verity Hawkes, Sound Chris Diebold, Creature FX Kate Walshe, Neill Gorton.
18Hz Productions-Paramount Pictures.
89 mins. USA. 2025. US Rel: 9 January 2026 UK Rel: 30 January 2026. Cert. R (US)/18 (UK).
