Writer/director Johannes Roberts mines his 47 Meters Down franchise for ideas in this film about a rabies infected chimp / cunning psychopath out to kill the world’s dumbest entitled teenagers whom he’s trapped In an infinity pool because … lulz?
PRIMATE (2026)
★★ OF ★★★★★ stars
PRIMATE, hitting theaters this Friday January 9th from Paramount Pictures is one of the most bizarre horror movies I’ve seen in recent memory. It stars Academy Award winner Troy Kotsur as a deaf author who is trying to sell the media rights to his successful series of deaf adventurer novels the same weekend his daughter Lucy (Johnny Sequoyah) is coming back to visit from school along with her friends. His other daughter feels estranged and alone through all this. His wife was a linguistics professor and has passed on from cancer, but her chimpanzee Ben, still lives with the family as a pet in his own enclosure in the family’s opulent home in Hawaii, complete with a cave grotto infinity pool built into the side of the cliff their home rests on.
Prior to this visit, we learn that Ben was bitten by a diseased mongoose and is in pain, which the family weirdly brushes off as just a minor thing to call their vet friend Cavanaugh (Deadpool 2’a Rob Delaney) about later. We know that they shouldn’t brush this off because the film starts off telling us about how deadly rabies is and sure enough, Ben becomes rabid like minutes into the film. Director Roberts seems to channel DAY OF THE ANIMALS from 1977 or Stephen King’s CUJO here and the rabies drives Ben mad – he’s a full blown stalking psychopath who finds elaborate death set pieces are the only thing that seem to stymy the pain from his hydrophobia. There is some throwback fun here channeling these eco-horror (there’s a line about rabies not being native to Hawaii to touch on this) / animal attack films for a new audience. This includes finding laughs from setting traps for horny college boys, to playing with a car alarm fob to stalk an annoying friend of Lucy’s and kill her as the 911 operator seemingly judges her for trying to escape. Coming into this, I was expecting Ben to riff off CHIMP CRAZY or Gordie in NOPE, so imagine my surprise at seeing him largely playing the role of one of the sharks from 47 METERS DOWN by way of Michael Myers as he stalks his next victim in the pool.
Make no mistake, PRIMATE actively wants you to hate everyone in this movie so that Ben’s murder spree channels a dopamine hit ala Art the Clown’s gleeful over the top death scenes in TERRIFIER. Not one character here ever comes off as likable, the only character really given any pathos, backstory, or empathy is Ben, which weirdly makes you want him to kill every paper thin character in this movie. Every victim in this film has an over the top, and in some cases, jaw dropping death scene which makes for a fun crowd experience ala 2024’s IN A VIOLENT NATURE. The blood flows like wine throughout PRIMATE’s lean 89 minute run time. The gore here is drawn out and superfluous, but will hook you in with its viscera and catharsis.
That being said, PRIMATE is very derivative of other films and this can be trying. A good almost hour of this film is basically a retread of Roberts’ 47 METERS DOWN, with Ben stalking the characters as he has them trapped in an infinity pool and he picks them off as they try to escape with a character’s leg in peril due to an attack from the title animal. For the uninitiated, that is literally also the plot of 47 METERS DOWN. The film heavily homages HALLOWEEN and DIE HARD in its run time, with Ben, portrayed by a human in an elaborate chimp outfit and mask, teleporting throughout the house, stalking girls in the closet and toying with his victims silently before he brutally murders them. If character development akin to BIRDEMIC is your bag, PRIMATE is your huckleberry. Jane Goodall’s head would be spinning in her grave if she saw PRIMATE, likely followed by Ben ripping it off to use as a bowling ball. Your mileage may vary; if you like TERRIFIER-esque gore fare with the villain punishing the stupid, you’ll like this. It’s hard to stay engaged at times because the characters make such terrible decisions throughout the runtime of the film, but there is some pleasure in seeing them annihilated for their stupidity, not unlike THE MONKEY.
PRIMATE hits theaters January 9th.
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PRIMATE MEDIA NIGHT