Director: Johannes Roberts
What Is Primate About?
Primate follows a young woman, Lucy, who returns to her family’s home in Hawaii with friends for a vacation, only for things to spiral into chaos when the family’s pet chimpanzee becomes infected with rabies and turns violently aggressive. Trapped in an isolated house, the group must fight to survive as the once-friendly animal stalks and attacks them, turning their getaway into a tense, deadly struggle.
My Personal Thoughts:
For starters, I really enjoyed the score in this movie. It was very reminiscent of John Carpenter’s “Christine”, so that was a nice surprise I was not expecting. There was also some inspiration taken from the original Halloween movie in the crafting of certain scenes, but not nearly as well executed as that classic film. I also like how this film used a chimp suit instead of CGI, because that would have made this movie even more insufferable. There is nothing worse than the overuse of CGI in animal attack films. Practical effects tend to be more believable, so that was a positive in what was a pretty bleak film experience overall. I thought the kills and gore were solid, but the suspense that led up to them was lacking in most areas outside of the closet scene and the bedroom scene.
Now for the negatives. Primate starts with some intrigue, but ultimately, the movie sees many dumb character choices that never really progress the plot. A lot of this film felt like the characters were hopeless without any survival instinct, whether that was just sitting in a pool for WAY too long or constantly turning their back on the chimp; it did not move the story along the way it needed. This film was curated by taking generic attractive actors, but not picking one main character we should really hone in on and get attached to, and expecting us to root for them to survive this situation. Halfway through the film, it was hard not to root for the chimp based on the idiotic decisions being made. Someone grab a weapon and defend yourself, please! I get that dumb choices have to be made to progress a film in some aspects, but this movie could have ended in 10 minutes if one person knew how to use a weapon for self-defense.
I hoped that the ending would give this film a positive score, but it did not deliver anything special and led to more idiotic character choices. Overall, there is not a whole lot to say about this film. I’m glad I waited for it to come out on a streamer instead of seeing it in the theatres.
Movie Stub Rating
The trailer was more enjoyable than the movie. If you walk into this film not expecting much and just want a 90-minute B-style survival horror, I could see you having a decent enough time. For me, I walked in with low expectations and was still let down by the dumb decisions and lack of plot development.
