Primate

Johannes Roberts has been a reliable source of genre filmmaking for some time now. Largely delivering singularly-focused schlocky entertainment that delivers on their high-concepts, Roberts may not be above good taste, but he excels in crafting edge-of-your-seat thrills. His two 47 Meters Down films were the rare modern shark movies that didn’t make you want to watch Jaws instead. His much-maligned video game adaptation Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City was far better than it was initially given credit for, using John Carpenter-inspired widescreen photography and moody atmosphere to deliver an adaptation that understood what fans of the games loved and hoped for after the many Paul W.S. Anderson films. His latest film, a primitive riff on Cujo, is another straightforward genre exercise that handily delivers the bloody goods one would hope for when hearing about a killer chimp movie.

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Lucy (Johnny Sequoyah) is returning to her home in Hawaii with her friend Kate (Victoria Wyant) and surprise guest Hannah (Jessica Alexander). Having been away at college and growing distant from her family after the death of her mother, Lucy seeks to reconnect with her father, Adam (Oscar-winner Troy Kotsur), a successful author, and her younger sister Erin (Gia Hunter). Staying at their cliffside mansion, Lucy is also reunited with her family’s pet chimp, Ben. Originally brought home by their mother, a linguistic professor, Ben is a highly intelligent and loving chimpanzee who communicates via ASL and a talking touchpad. When Ben is bitten by a rabies-infected mongoose, his demeanor quickly changes, becoming increasingly hostile and downright vicious. When Lucy’s father is away on a book-signing event, she and her friends, including childhood crush, Nick (Benjamin Cheng), have the house all to themselves to throw a party, but are interrupted by the increasingly hostile Ben, whose rabies infection has turned the once loving pet chimp into a crazed, rabid animal. When carnage and craziness ensues, Lucy and her friends seek refuge in the mansion’s infinity pool as Ben’s rabies prevents him from getting near water. With no one set to come home for days and their phones all destroyed by Ben, Lucy and her friends might fight back if they want to avoid being demolished by Ben’s newly-formed rage.

Directed by Johannes Roberts, Primate is a simplistic, but gruesome and mightily effective horror programmer that does precisely what it says on the tin. Roberts takes infectious glee in delivering a nasty horror flick that knows how to push its audiences buttons. With kills that will cause even the most grizzled horror vets to squirm, Roberts opens his film with a gnarly face-ripping to prep the audience for the kind of gore-filled ride they’re about to embark on. Primate is the kind of film that giddily chucks buckets of blood all over its idyllic, glass-walled mansion. While the gore is indeed shocking and visceral, Roberts makes the audience earn its bloodshed with careful pacing, utilizing his moments of splatter to the fullest effect.

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To Roberts’ credit, very little CG is added, with Ben being portrayed by actor/movement specialist Miguel Torres Umba. The results show as Ben has an imposing physical presence that Roberts and cinematographer Stephen Murphy (Heart Eyes) capture ominously. Roberts, who wears his John Carpenter influences on his sleeves, excels at building strong levels of suspense. Roberts has only grown in his filmmaking confidence, pacing tension quite methodically in key sequences. One notable scene involves Kotsur’s character returning home amidst chaos, only to not notice any clear destruction due to his deafness. Roberts weaponizes the lack of sound to create a sense of isolation and paranoia as we see Kotsur roam around his luxurious mansion before spotting foul play. It’s a gripping sequence that pays off nicely. The filmmakers get a great deal of mileage from the space of the mansion location, carefully lensing how much characters can see when hiding and generally providing the production design a sense of claustrophobia.

At just 89 minutes, Roberts’ film tends to drag in large spots with Lucy and her friends sitting around in a pool while Ben lurks nearby, looking for a chance to escape. These extended breaks would be more forgiving if the script had any interest in character growth or thematic weight. While Primate is thankfully narrow-minded in this aspect, the large chunks of screen-time where characters sit around repeating the same arguments over and over simply break up the momentum. The occasional infuriating character motivation does also detract from the sense of wicked fun. There is a general sadness to the film as Ben is more than a pet to the family, but closer to a sibling. That sadness lingers during much of the runtime before being tossed out the window for an admittedly satisfying, but rather simple climax.

Courtesy Paramount

Primate is a lean, mean and effective creature feature with a particularly gnarly edge. Director Johannes Roberts has become a go-to name for unpretentious, no frills genre entertainment and his latest film is another prime example of his talents. This is the kind of gruesome horror thriller that knows exactly the kind of film it is and has quite a bit of fun in delivering some well-earned shocks. It is January, usually a dumping ground for new films wedged between the many awards contenders out in circulation, but Primate is the kind of schlocky fun fans of the genre will likely go apeshit over.

Primate is now playing in theaters.