Director and screenwriter Johannes Roberts is no stranger to the B-grade animal attack survival horror mode. Usually, Roberts keeps it watery with young women as potential shark bait in 47 Meters Below and 47 Meters: Uncaged. Primate oddly also spends a lot of time with attractive young women in the water, although this time it’s a chlorinated swimming pool which is the only place they can avoid the rabies rage-crazed adopted chimpanzee Ben (movement specialist Miguel Torres Umba) as he picks off teens one by one in baroquely violent ways.
Primate is a slasher but there’s no mystery or lore attached to the killer. Ben, who was adopted by a recently deceased linguistics professor, still lives with the Pinborough family in Hawaii. Lucy Pinborough (Johnny Sequoyah) is college aged and has been avoiding returning to her family home due to unresolved grief issues. Tensions exist between her thriller author father Adam (Troy Kotsur) and her younger sister Erin (Gia Hunter). Adam has closed himself off a little to his daughters after his wife’s death and Erin is lonely and disappointed that Lucy is bringing her friends Kate (Victoria Wyant) and Kate’s brother Nick (Benjamin Cheng) to their clifftop home for at least a few days as Adam will be at a book signing and a meeting regarding the sale of his novels to a movie studio. Lucy herself is disappointed when Kate invites Hannah (Jessica Alexander) to Hawaii for the break.
Unbeknownst to the group Ben has been infected with rabies via a bite delivered from a mongoose. As Hawaii is considered hydrophobia free no one feels the need to rush nor worry too much about Ben’s bite – something that is shown to be a big mistake as the t-shirt wearing and teddy bear clutching chimp begins his reign of terror by ripping the face off an unsuspecting vet (Rob Delaney) when he tries to give him a shot for antibiotics.
Primate runs on an engine of gore. Characterisation is basically non-existent beyond the slightly fractured Pinborough family dynamic and Hannah’s undeclared competition with Lucy for the romantic attention of Nick and the close friendship of Lucy’s BFF Kate. The character who is given the most attention and backstory is Ben. Able to communicate via a language pad and considered in press clippings to be a genius in chimpanzee terms, Ben’s place with the Pinboroughs is as more than a ‘pet’ – he’s family. Although the time spent with Ben pre-rabies is relatively short. He’d never hurt them unless he was suffering from the violent madness of rabies, in which case all bets are off.
Ben is extremely efficient as a death dealer. Once the group becomes aware of his now-murderous intent they decamp to the swimming pool but not before Ben takes a bite out of Erin’s leg adding more urgency to an already panic-inducing situation because she must get to a hospital for a rabies shot.
There really isn’t anyone to invest in as the characters are mainly fodder. Two guys turn up simply for one to be killed in a stomach-churning manner. Most of the action is in oddly or poorly lit sequences which seem to be deliberately staged that way so there is less light on the mask and prosthetics worn by Miguel Torres Umba. Torres Umba does perform Ben with movement and mime alacrity, but there are times when the practical nature of the chimp design comes off as a little too cheap. Suspending disbelief is all part of the nature of Primate, so allowing for some wonky effects isn’t too taxing on the audience. What seems to be a larger stretch is for a creature essentially in rage mode seemingly work out strategies to prolong the dread. It’s preposterous that a mentally impaired Pan troglodyte can outwit the humans he’s hunting; but then again, the humans are for the most part suffering from “stupid horror character” syndrome.
Primate has at least one thing in its favour which is its lean and mean runtime. At under 90 minutes it doesn’t stick around too long and is brisk enough that the meat of the movie – crazed chimp carnage – is the focus. Roberts and co-scribe Ernest Riera haven’t gone in for cohesive and logical narrative, they’ve gone for rabid chimp savagery and viscous visceral viciousness. If that’s what you turn up for there’s enough to make it ostensibly worthwhile, it’s just a shame no one bothers to turn on a light.
Director: Johannes Roberts
Cast: Johnny Sequoyah, Jess Alexander, Troy Kotsur
Writers: Johannes Roberts, Ernest Riera
Producers: Walter Hamada, John Hodges, Bradley Pilz
Composer: Adrian Johnston
Cinematographer: Stephen Murphy
Editor: Peter Gvozdas
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