Chimp-with-Rabies Primate is a Viscerally Nasty Slice of Animals-Attack Exploitation
A beloved family chimpanzee gets rabies. Carnage ensues. That’s the premise for the visceral horror yarn Primate, and while comparisons to Stephen King’s 1981 novel Cujo, the 1986 Elisabeth Shue thriller Link, and the “Gordy” sequence in Jordan Peele’s 2022 masterwork Nope are inevitable, a closer parallel would likely be Alexandre Aja’s 2019 alligators-on-a-rampage, home-invasion hit Crawl. Much like that one, this is a gnarly bit of gory nonsense centered on close-knit family members trying to survive in an impossible situation, with everyone else in the cast nothing more than fodder for a beast looking to feast on blood — and there’s a lot of feasting.
Much to the disappointment of her sister Erin (Gia Hunter), college student Lucy (Johnny Sequoyah) has not been home since the death of their beloved primatologist mother almost a year prior. Hoping to surprise both her sister and their best-selling author father, Adam (CODA Oscar winner Troy Kotsur), she’s returned to their opulent and secluded Hawaii home for a brief vacation. Erin has brought friends Kate (Victoria Wyant) and Hannah (Jessica Alexander) with her, while the former’s brother Nick (Benjamin Cheng), an island resident, plans to stay with them for the duration of their visit.
The fourth member of the family is Ben (movement specialist Miguel Torres Umba), a friendly and intelligent chimpanzee their late mother had trained to communicate via sign language and with the aid of a tablet. While initially overjoyed that all three of his favorite humans have been reunited under the same roof, a freak bite from a wandering mongoose changes everything. With Adam away at a book signing, Ben begins to deteriorate, rabies slowly warping him into a violently unbalanced monster who sees everyone — even those he loves — as terrifying threats who must be destroyed by any means necessary.
Directed by genre veteran Johannes Roberts (The Strangers: Prey at Night, Resident Evil: Welcome to Racoon City), who cowrote the script alongside his 47 Meters Down collaborator Ernest Riera, this is not a picture for PETA members. It’s straight-up When Animals Attack! exploitation, and the filmmaker makes zero effort to conceal that. An opening prologue goes to great lengths to explicitly showcase exactly what audiences are in for; this face-ripping barn burner had the audience squealing and squirming in their seats less than 10 minutes in.
The movie is impeccably crafted. During the first act, Roberts slavishly explores the lavish multistory home built into the side of a mountain cliff (complete with a spectacular outdoor pool). He also gives ample freedom to Sequoyah, Hunter, Kotsur, and Wyant to establish their characters. Ultimately, this is the quartet I was most concerned about, and that’s clearly by design. All of the laying out of the geography and focus on the interpersonal dynamics only amplifies the tension later on.
The opening sequences are also a stunning early showcase for Umba. Aided by costume, makeup, and motion capture, it is the actor’s unbelievable performance as Ben that allows what transpires to resonate deeply and painfully. Umba’s eye work is particularly remarkable, and the subtle changes as the chimp slowly and agonizingly devolves — fighting an internal battle he is tragically destined to lose — is magnificent. I was blown away.
Make no mistake, this is brutally unflinching stuff. The deaths are about two steps beyond extreme, and I do wonder how Roberts and company secured an R rating. The level of throat-ripping violence is jarring, as Ben viciously dispatches his victims in surprisingly different ways, right up to the final kill. There are no niceties, and even the most likable characters meet the cruelest, most skull-crushing ends. Even for those (like me) who have made something of a career watching, writing, and, yes, enjoying this sort of thing, some bits are rather difficult to endure. My stomach twisted in a series of knots that remained there long after the film concluded.
I should note that there is also a huge volume of unbridled stupidity at play. A few of the side characters are stereotypical horndog nincompoops right out of a 1980s teen sex comedy, only slightly updated for today’s cellphone-obsessed, social-media-narcissist era. Additionally, the subplot involving Adam at his book signing goes nowhere of value, and don’t get me started on the normally concerned father’s initial indifference when he finds the dead mongoose in Ben’s pen. It’s fairly laughable (and not in a good way).
But this type of idiocy is par for the course in such outings. The confidence that Roberts brings to his handling of the material, the beauteous, icy-blue creepiness of Simon Bowles’s (The Descent) immaculate production design, and the hushed fluidity that cinematographer Stephen Murphy (Heart Eyes) uses to fuel his adrenalized camerawork is all outstanding, and it also helps mitigate many of the feature’s more obvious missteps.
Best of all is the pugnaciously primeval intensity added by composer Adrian Johnston (I Am Not a Serial Killer). His score is like some crazily magnificent melding of Tangerine Dream, John Carpenter, and Wendy Carlos, and it’s hard to imagine this nastiness would work nearly as well without his energetic electronic compositions.
At the end of the day, Primate remains a top-notch slice of animalistic terror about a peaceful creature transformed into an unkillable monster. If that sounds like fun, get your tickets right away. I’ll be watching it again soon myself. Maybe I’ll see you there.
– Review reprinted courtesy of the SGN in Seattle
Film Rating: 3 (out of 4)
