Primate (2026)

By: Mike Ward on Friday, January 09

R Running Time: 89 mins

SHOULD I SEE IT?

YES

  • For all its violence and gore and unhinged content, Primate wastes no time in getting down to business.

  • Though not the greatest movie necessarily, director Johannes Roberts definitely understands how to ratchet up the tension and create anxiety and uncertainty among a viewing audience.

  • Ben is a completely believable creation on screen, and fans of excessive violence and gore will be shocked (delighted?) at just how much Primate delivers in that regard.

NO

  • But with that said, the movie is not at all for the squeamish and some kills are long, prolonged, bloody encounters with visuals you can’t unsee.

  • The decisions made by most of these characters are ridiculous and dumb the movie down considerably.

  • A film that struggles to justify its relatively scant 89 minute running time.


OUR REVIEW

There is a moment within the first five minutes of Primate that caused the audience to gasp, laugh uncomfortably, and prompted a handful of movie critics to turn to each other and say, “Well, I guess that’s how the movie year begins!”

I say this with some reverence because Primate is a gory, surprising, somewhat shockingly violent, yet intriguing January movie. Gnarly is a word that comes to mind. Cringe-inducing and uncomfortably humorous are phrases which are not far behind. Heck, I might even go on to call the film a “jaw ripping good time” but a) that isn’t a thing people say, and b) I may have just violated my anti-spoiler rules of movie reviewing.

Regardless, within mere moments of Primate, we soon learn that Ben, our movie’s gentle-hearted chimpanzee, is capable of some truly heinous things, though perhaps none of it is truly his fault.

Well, I mean … he does bash someone’s skull in with a rock and dig his claws deep into the back of someone trying to get away from him, among other things. But were it not for a rabid mongoose biting him, Ben would still be the family pet who speaks through a voice-controlled tablet, smiles, laughs, and wants people to shake hands with him.

Director Johannes Roberts understands how to make you squirm in your seat and ratchet up tension effectively. Inherently, we see Ben as a sympathetic figure, wondering why best-selling author Adam (Oscar winner Troy Kotsur, Coda) keeps Ben as a family pet. As Primate opens, Adam’s adult daughter Lucy (Johnny Sequoyah) returns home to Hawaii with her best friend Kate (Victoria Wyant) and Kate’s tag-along Hannah (Jessica Alexander). Adam’s teenage daughter Erin (Gia Hunter) is excited to have Lucy back, even if she did not return alone. Add in family friend Nick (Benjamin Cheng), and with Adam having to travel out of town, the group settles into poolside drinking and hanging out, blissfully unaware that Ben has been bitten.

For all the inventiveness in how Roberts maximizes what is essentially a one-set shoot and creates palpable intensity as the film goes on, Primate  eventually suffers from characters making some pretty ridiculous decisions. The screenplay, written by Roberts and Ernest Riera, struggles to balance foreshadowing, jump scares, and the inevitability of what these characters must endure. Few are spared by the end, and Ben essentially becomes a Jason Voorhees or Michael Myers-style slasher villain, with composer Adrian Johnston’s score reminiscent of those films to match.

Silly at times and absolutely not for the squeamish, yet somehow far more entertaining than it has any right to be, Primate can grow a bit tiresome at 89 minutes. Even efforts to throw in two unnecessary characters in the final 20 minutes feel as if they are there simply to pad things out.

Overall, there are things to like here. Kotsur’s being deaf is handled especially well through the film’s sound design, including one unsettling scene where he is unaware of who, or what, is happening behind him. Roberts gets real traction out of the film going completely silent in those moments and Kotsur’s performance adds to the anxiety.

Using limited CGI, mostly practical effects, and motion capture, Ben is played expertly by human actor Miguel Torres Umba. That sense of realism makes the film far more fun, despite becoming more gruesome with every kill along the way.

With an audience, Primate was fun. The person behind me kept kicking my seat out of nervousness, anxiousness, and not being able to sit still. I didn’t mind. I found Primate all a bit ridiculous, but also capable of surprising and shocking an audience better than many of the horror films we see nowadays. 

Ben is a vicious, animalistic killing machine, but he wasn’t meant to be. If that stupid mongoose never got hold of him, Ben might be living a seemingly happy and fulfilled life.

But alas … that is not Ben’s fate. He gets bit. He becomes enraged. Ben goes smash on lots of people in lots of different ways. And Primate earns almost every kicked seat, gasp, groan and “holy s**t” reaction that Johannes Roberts and Paramount were clearly hoping for.

CAST & CREW

Starring: Johnny Sequoyah, Jessica Alexander, Troy Kotsur, Victoria Wyant, Gia Hunter, Benjamin Cheng, Charlie Mann, Tienne Simon, Miguel Torres Umba

Director: Johannes Roberts
Written by: Johannes Roberts, Ernest Riera
Release Date: January 9, 2026
Paramount Pictures