Note for local viewers: Primate includes a small amount of American Sign Language subtitled only in Czech on Prague screens.
A rapid chimpanzee corners a group of teens in a swimming pool at an isolated Hawaiian estate in Primate, which opens in Prague cinemas this weekend after debuting stateside over Christmas. This schlocky horror film pairs some bravura scenes of gore and terrific creature effects work with its can’t-miss premise, but a generic screenplay packed with one too many slasher tropes drains away a lot of the fun. Still, it delivers the monkey-on-a-killing spree goods.
Primate wastes no time establishing what’s in store: in the film’s very first scene, a needle-toting vet (played by an uncredited Rob Delaney) enters a pet chimpanzee’s enclosure only to have his face gruesomely ripped off. This shocking moment—which the film never really tops—showcases the film’s central star: Ben, the pet chimp, played by an actor (Miguel Torres Umba) in a monkey costume so convincing that most viewers won’t even realize how the effect was accomplished.
Ben is owned by Adam (Troy Kotsur), a deaf author who lives in a sprawling Hawaiian cliffside estate overlooking the Pacific with teenage daughter Erin (Gia Hunter). Older daughter Lucy (Johnny Sequoyah) flies back home for college vacation, with friends Kate (Victoria Wyant) and Hannah (Jess Alexander), and Kate’s brother Nick (Benjamin Cheng), in tow. Why does Adam have a pet chimpanzee? Ben’s backstory is never really explored, but he’s something of a brother to Lucy and Erin.
Adam finds a nasty wound on Ben’s arm and a dead mongoose in his cage, and sends the carcass to the vet for testing. But then he’s off for the weekend, leaving the kids—and a couple of frat boys (Charlie Mann and Tienne Simon) Lucy met on the plane—home alone. Soon enough, they discover that something isn’t quite right with Ben.
Primate is really two movies competing for our attention, and the first is far more interesting: a tense thriller that examines what would happen if a pet chimp contracted rabies. We’ve seen stories about non-rabid pet chimps that have violently attacked people, and this only ups the ante: a Cujo with opposable thumbs who can climb walls and open doors.
An opening title scrawl reminds us that animals infected with rabies are terrified by water, and beyond that, Ben can’t swim. That results in kids jumping in the water to stay safe from Ben’s violent rage, and there’s also a ticking clock: because Erin has been scratched and presumably infected, she needs urgent medical attention. There’s real promise here as the kids now need to devise a plan to distract the monkey and get help as soon as possible.
But Primate soon becomes another movie: the generic slasher, where we keep yelling at the screen as the kids stumble over themselves in order to advance the plot. At multiple points do characters have phones in their hands but do not call 911; they creep around in order to not make any noise and alert the chimp, but accidentally step on the remote and turn on the TV at full volume; they’re taken by complete surprise when the killer monkey they’re all watching from has climbed onto the string of lights hanging over the pool.
One could overlook the actions of the protagonists as those of dumb kids, but there’s one thing we cannot overlook: the behavior of the drooling, rabid chimp, who slowly morphs into sadistic killer over the course of the movie. Ben plays with his victims, silently stalks them throughout the estate, and even taunts them with the text-to-speech app on his iPad: “Lucy…bad.”
There’s a version of Primate that apes Monkey Shines, and deals with the relationships between Adam, his helper monkey Ben, and his daughters; Oscar-winner Kotsur brings a certain gravitas with his performance that the film never capitalizes on. By the end, it has become Shakma with better production values.
Of course, if all you’re looking for is a slick killer-monkey movie, Primate has you covered. Johannes Roberts (47 Meters Down) directs with a sense of urgency that keeps the film moving even when the characters’ actions test the our patience. The retro-synth ’80s-style score frmo Adrian Johnston adds a pulpy energy that suits the material, and the effects work is consistently strong, even if some of the more explicit gore moments feel like conspicuous insert shots added in after the fact.
But most of all, Primate is elevated by its creature work and the physical performance at its center. The chimpanzee costume is remarkably effective, selling weight, movement, and menace in a way that makes Ben feel like a tangible presence more terrifying than any digital creation. While the screenplay never fully capitalizes on its more intriguing ideas, the technical craftsmanship on display ensures that Primate succeeds on more generic terms—as a lean, nasty, and undeniably entertaining entry in the killer-animal horror canon.
