Primate (2025) Review

On summer break from college, Lucy (Johnny Sequoyah) heads back to her family home in Hawaii with her two friends. Lucy is reunited with her father Adam (Troy Kotsur), younger sister Erin (Gia Hunter) and their pet chimpanzee Ben (Miguel Torres Umba, via animatronics and mo-cap). No one is aware that Ben has been bitten by a mongoose, has contracted rabies and by the time Lucy’s father has left on a business trip, Ben is well on the way to becoming a violent killing machine. Would you find a mongoose on Hawaii? Don’t ask that question, just sit back and enjoy the carnage.

The opening seconds of Primate feature the glossy Paramount logo, giving way to a glossy, lush, island backdrop which turns out to be the setting for a distinctly unglossy and alarming face ripping. Now that director Johannes Roberts has the attention of the audience, the tale winds back to thirty-six hours previously, with Lucy trying to repair the bond between her and Erin and both girls attempting to get the attention of their workaholic dad, who disappears on a business trip in order for the tale to a) put Lucy and her sister in peril and b) assemble a bunch of young folks for the requisite party in the swanky abode/kill zone.

The length of time it takes for Ben to switch from sweet, friendly chimp to twitchy, aggy killing machine is surprisingly short, trapping its young cast in the house’s own watery safe zone while their pint sized but lethal nemesis drools and snarls on the sidelines. At this point, I had concerns that the remainder of the movie would have them stuck there until ten minutes before the end credits but the screenplay by Roberts and Ernest Riera – who also penned both 47 Meters Down movies – knows when to open out the playing field.

Rather than ape (sorry) the trend for swamping decently budgeted genre pieces in CGI, Primate revels in its use of prosthetics, leading to some unapologetically gory set pieces as our often hapless bunch of teens are slashed, have chunks bitten out of them and, in one stand out moment, have their jaw ripped off in lingering close-up. The early sympathy for Ben’s plight, as he whimpers over his injury, dissipates over the runtime as he lays into characters who don’t deserve to have their heads bashed in and dishes out some vicious business to both Lucy and Erin.

Okay, the look of Ben isn’t always convincing – or consistent – but this is a nature gone wild film that leans into action and suspense rather than realism. The humans versus chimp confrontations have real bite, balancing icky violence with the requisite creeping around a dark house, waiting for Ben to leap out of the shadows. Thankfully, the cheap jump scares are kept to a minimum and Roberts is a dab hand at upping the tension, realising that a snarling chimp slowly closing in on an unwitting party boy is just as scary as having him dive from out of shot at his next target. It’s more darkly comic, too.

In the lead, Sequoyah steers away from being too goody goody, instantly shown to have been ignoring her sister in favour of her friends but, whaddya know, she comes good, resourceful in her attempts to escape rather than becoming unbelievably kick ass. Lucy is also dealing with her own grief following the death of her mother, so she’s the story’s de facto emotional baggage carrier. Hunter plays the role of what would normally be the annoying younger sibling in an engaging, non-annoying way and Academy Award winner Kotsur – well, he’s pretty good when he’s onscreen but the plot dictates that he isn’t onscreen a lot and it does feel that his talents are squandered here, despite the welcome addition of signing and subtitles.

In other case news, Victoria Wyant and Jessica Alexander, as Lucy’s friends Kate and Hannah, are given just enough depth to be something other than monkey fodder but there’s an air of doom about the proceedings which hints that not many folks are going to make it out alive, bolstered by a script which has no qualms about gruesomely injuring anyone in Ben’s path, regardless of how compassionate they are. The attack sequences are bloody and brutal, with the chimp’s smarts coming into play way beyond his abilities with a soundboard, although that’s used for chilling effect both early on and in the increasingly demented climax.

Primate is a refreshing update of the kind of beast on the rampage movie audiences were enjoying decades ago, given a polished makeover and more than a few splashes of blood and guts. If it hung about too much then you may be questioning some of its – and by definition, Ben’s – decisions but it swings between showdowns in brisk fashion and when it comes to startling kills, this is definitely not monkeying around.

Movie Rating:

Primate had it’s UK premiere at FrightFest Halloween.

Primate trailer