Primate
Directed by Johannes Roberts · 2025
| DirectorJohannes Roberts | PlatformParamount+ | Year2025 |
| Runtime1h 35m | FormatFilm | GenreHorror · Creature Feature |
| ThemesSurvival · Domesticated animals · Trust · Vacation gone wrong | ||
A college student comes home to Hawaii for a visit, her family’s beloved pet chimp gets into a rabid animal, and the whole thing unravels from there. Cujo but with a chimpanzee and a pool. That’s the pitch. That’s also the movie.
“He’s not the same animal anymore. Whatever he was before, he’s gone.”
What It Actually Felt Like
I went into this expecting to be annoyed by it. A horror movie centered on a rabid chimp is the kind of premise that usually means two hours of characters making terrible decisions while I sit there getting increasingly frustrated. That was not the experience I had.
What makes Ben work as a threat is that you see him before he turns. He uses a tablet to communicate, gets genuinely excited about gifts, has a whole relationship with this family. That five-minute setup does more for the tension than any jump scare because it makes the loss feel real. When things go wrong they go wrong fast and the movie doesn’t waste time getting there.
It’s not deep. It’s also not trying to be. It’s lean and gory and kind of fun and it got me. I did not expect to be rooting for anyone in a chimp horror movie and yet here we are.
The Honest Part
The characters make some decisions that are going to test you. The script is not doing anything beyond keeping you in the seat and occasionally making you flinch. That’s all it needs to do and it does it.
Who This Is For
Horror fans who want something low stakes and gory on a Saturday night. Go in knowing what it is. Don’t expect Hereditary. Do expect to be entertained by a rabid chimp in a crimson shirt.
⭐⭐⭐½ Way better than it had any right to be. Ben carried the whole thing.
Tags horror, creature feature, survival, B-movie, mood: fun and gnarly
