Primate, from Johannes Roberts, is 90 minutes of murder monkey mayhem with much mean malice. Mmm..
Primate is Cujo remade with a blend of Monkey Shines and Friday the 13th. It’s an odd blend, but it works; mostly. Though not without some tonal and pacing issues, Primate is a solid January horror film, nothing flashy or game-changing. But for what it is, 47 Meters Down director Johannes Roberts’ film is entertaining, with a slew of great moments, dashes of dark humor, and a nasty kill set. It’s a simple and straightforward B-movie, and for that, it works.
Outside of set-ups and cutaways for a specific character, Primate, co-written with Roberts and Ernest Riera (the pair also co-wrote the 47 Meters Down movies), remains tight in a single location, allowing a nice overall tension of being stuck in a place. That place is a large and secluded bluff-side house in Hawaii. Lucy is bringing a few friends home to visit after being away for a while. There she meets up with her sister and dad, a neighborhood friend. And also, there are two guys on the plane invited for drinks. A buffet set for bludgeoning. At the house, dad cares for Ben, a chimpanzee, who was raised by his deceased wife to bridge communication between man and animal. A mongoose bites Ben, and well, let the face-ripping commence. Roberts excels at finding tension in controlled locations, with a handful of people trying to survive a terrifying situation. After the sprawling mess of Welcome to Racoon City, it’s good to return to what works, and it works very well. 
It’s an interesting take, to have a rabid animal attack movie where, after the animal in question is Cujo’d, he becomes Jason Voorhees, or to be alliterative Monkey Michael Myers (not to mention a scene that riffs on the original Halloween). I’m serious. There’s a weird sense of “they really did that?” humor to the planning and setup of many of Ben’s kills and methods. He’s not acting in a straightforward, “gotta kill” manner, but rather “how can I make this fun for me and the audience,” utilizing the environment to set up and employ various methods. And those methods are surprisingly brutal. There are several nice turnarounds of set-ups you think are to be used against the infected primate, but really are for him to shock and attack. Love it.
Primate has a nasty mean streak. The film has a decent-sized cast, ready for the slaughter, and it slaughters them well. The gore is good, nasty, and mostly practical. It doesn’t hold back. It’s not gratuitous but far from the “cut away at the cut” sort. Lots of finching, ooohs, and big reactions from my audience. Gotta love a film not cutting out to make a PG-13 or more palatable R in favor of the squeamish.
The victims are fine: Johnny Sequoyah, Jess Alexander, Victoria Wyant, Gia Hunter, and Benjamin Cheng play the set. But that’s what they are, victims. They are dumb as all hell and need to be for the movie to work. Just go with it. That’s part of the charm of this type of flick. The daughters get a little character, but the rest are there to be killed in vicious manners. They had trauma in the past, but it’s not really a factor for the film. Fighting Ben won’t heal from losing their mother two years ago. The best of them is dad, played by Troy Kotsur, coming off his Oscar for Coda. Major kudos to Miguel Torres Umba as Ben. I’m glad the filmmakers went for “guy in suit” over CG or a trained animal. This gave a more fluid performance, allowing it to go places neither of the two would. Ben is a full-on threat, and Umba gives him a life in the movements. Essentially a mime performance with screetches, how he moves from pet to monster, and within that frame is a wonder of physical acting.
It’s effectively a locked-in-a-place-with-something-bad horror. The way Ben and the victims try to work around others is well done and clever. And each kill has its own flavor. Now, the Hawaaiin Bluff house could be anywhere, and the camera doesn’t really highlight the area, but that’s fine. The push is in the drive of the story and the action beats. I’ll admit, some of those action beats go on just a bit too long, past the “okay, I see the setup. Why are we holding?” The additional beats don’t add anything and dissipate the tension. I’m guessing Roberts is leaning into the dark humor of it, or maybe trying to deliver right to that 90-minute runtime. But I’m not sure much of that fully works outside a few direct moments. There is a tonal disparity within the film; while I never thought it was supposed ot be serious with a capital S, the level of humor was unbalanced. The nasty wounds are meant to be nasty and gnashing, which betrays character lines or actions at points. Finally, I loved the Carpenter and Goblin-esque score.
Primate is an effective and nasty animal attack B-picture. While it has some pacing and tonal issues, it’ does what it needs to do admirably in a mostly tight 90 minutes. Entertaining and gory, with plenty of surprises and tension, Johannes Roberts delivers with Primate.
Side note: Roberts must have a thing for water-horror. Two 47 Meters Down movies follow swimmers versus sharks. The best part of Strangers: Prey At Night was the pool sequence, and Primate heavily features people stuck in a pool. Maybe that’s what Resident Evil: Welcome to Racoon City needed – Tyrant taking a swim.