PRIMATE: A Bloodthirsty Throwback Creature Feature

Rageful monkeys are all the rage. Nearly a year after Oz Perkins’ The Monkey gave us a killer toy, and a few years after Gordo traumatized us with his brief, yet memorable scene in Nope, a new bloodthirsty beast is heading to theaters in Primate. And despite a wild premise that could easily be scoffed at, the film is a surprisingly gruesome and thrilling experience that will delight horror fans with its throwback feel.

Lucy (Johnny Sequoyah) is traveling home to Hawaii during a break from college, with her best friend Kate and frenemy Hannah (Jessica Alexander) tagging along. Lucy gets a lukewarm welcome back, as her dad (Troy Kotsur) is immediately leaving for work, and her little sister is upset she hasn’t visited sooner.

But one person is excited to see her, and that is the family’s pet chimp, Ben.

The animal was rescued by their late mother and has grown up with the family, and is treated like one of their own. However, Ben has fallen ill, which sends him into a murderous rampage none of them could have prepared for.

Primate packs so much fury into its tight 89-minute runtime. A high-concept film in one location, you could expect it to simply be dumb fun. It still is in some aspects, but it goes beyond brutal deaths to deliver some well-executed sound and visual elements that feel, at times, like a nod to past creature features and monster flicks that inspired director and co-writer Johannes Roberts.

It opens with an insane sequence of events before thrusting us back to before the chaos was unleashed. It’s a jarring scene that makes it clear this film is not holding back in terms of gore. Ben does some truly horrifying things to these people, and I could definitely see it being a bit much to stomach for some.

What’s so wonderful is that the majority is done in a practical way. Of course, you can’t have a real chimp on set butchering folks, and a digital version will never quite feel tangible enough. But Ben feels real, and that’s due to the film going the route of a performer in a suit, with movement specialist Miguel Torres Umba as Ben. It helps him feel even more frightening, with moments where he feels like a slasher villain, or even similar to the velociraptors in Jurassic Park.

And as Ben gets into his killer spree, we’re delighted and disturbed by the gruesome SFX makeup that will leave you squirming in your seat and shocked by what’s transpiring. Again, from the start, we’re shown they’re going to have fun with these deaths, and they are certainly inventive. But it’s not just the effects that are the impressive technical feats of this film.

There’s a very important aspect of a film that can truly elevate it… Its score. That can really shape and mold the experience for audiences as the sound fills the theater. You might be expecting Primate to be subpar in this space, but you’d be wrong. It boasts a stellar score that harkens back to 80s horror classics, reminiscent of the iconic work of John Carpenter. Composed by Adrian Johnston, it pulsates through every tense moment, taking this monster movie to a different level.

It’s a suspenseful film that keeps you on the edge of your seat, and its score effectively adds to the tension. This film maintains a foreboding feeling and a constant sense of dread throughout, which again keeps this simple one-location horror film engaging the whole way through. Which is also why I appreciated its short runtime that doesn’t drag things out longer than needed.

While I had a great time with Primate, I do think it was lacking more fleshed-out and compelling characters. Lucy and her father are right on the cusp of it, but the others feel rather one-note. Perhaps something we lost given the short runtime. In the end, the characters are mostly there to be Ben’s entertainment, so it’s sort of fine that they are shallow. However, I did miss a more developed connection, especially during its climactic finale with Ben.

Will this film be on anyone’s “Best of 2026” list? Likely not. But it was an unexpected surprise and a wicked fun time in the theater, especially given the not-so-great reputation of January horror films. I love that it hooks you in with an adorable monkey before unleashing his rage, horrifying you with what he has done in the end.

Primate is in theaters now