Any primatologist is free to correct me, but I somehow doubt a chimpanzee has quite the muscle strength depicted in this movie to rip through human faces like they’re silly putty.
Primate is the latest in a surprisingly long line of killer monkey movies, such as Monkey Shines and Link, although it is perhaps the first to use the lifelike motion-capture technology developed primarily through the modern Planet of the Apes series to render its homicidal simian as opposed to a real trained animal. Safer certainly for the cast and crew, and it affords some new degrees of horror effects, which director Johannes Roberts is only too happy to exploit. But enhanced visual tangibility isn’t everything -we’ve seen other movies with realistic-looking apes and other movies about wild animals stalking defenceless humans. How does one make such a film stand out as more than a mere creature-feature?
It turns out there are a few ways, though they don’t necessarily interest Roberts, who keeps his focus primarily on the animal violence and horror. The film is set in Hawaii, and the isolated beach mansion of the family of Lucy (Johnny Sequoyah), a college girl bringing a couple friends home for a vacation. Her deaf father Adam (Troy Kotsur) is a successful author and the family has a pet chimpanzee called Ben, who is particularly intelligent and sophisticated. But a bite from a rabid mongoose drastically changes Ben’s personality, and with Adam away and the young adults home by themselves, he turns increasingly violent towards them until he starts on a brutal killing spree.
Ben has learned to communicate a little using a tablet soundboard that is established early but factors surprisingly little into his rage (in fact it likely only exists to service the final shot). But it is one of a few things that sets a context of familiarity for this chimp -monkeys have been trained to use such devices in the past- to lull the audience into the movie’s veneer of authenticity. This isn’t much maintained -not just in the carnage Ben causes but the impossibly dangerous situation of the home on a cliff-face over the ocean with no other residences in sight. But Ben does move and function in a plausible way, played by Miguel Torres Umba.
Roberts comes up with one great suspenseful context where a good chunk of the second act takes place. Early into Ben’s rampage the characters find themselves trapped in an infinity pool overlooking the cliff-face -Ben unable to reach them due to the hydrophobic effects of the rabies, but blocking the only exit from the area, though with Lucy’s sister Erin (Gia Hunter) having been bitten and in severe danger if she can’t get to the hospital. There’s a fantastic overhead shot of her and the four others treading water in a pool of blood. And the movie maintains some good suspense here, as Ben contrives creative ways to get to them that they must evade, and they make attempts to retrieve things from the ledge like a phone and a floatie.
Adequate work is done establishing these characters as well by the cast -at least some of them- so that there are genuine stakes in what happens to them. They are all played like believable teenagers rather than just a smorgasbord waiting to be killed. There are even some curious relationships developed, namely an antagonistic one between Lucy and Hannah (Jessica Alexander), a friend of Lucy’s best friend Kate (Victoria Wyant), spontaneously invited along without her knowledge or permission. The tension between them is played well, and there is an arc suggested for the two to patch up their differences, Hannah played with more sympathy than usual for this kind of a character. The boys they randomly meet and invite over before all the chaos starts are the opposite of course -obvious body bags from their first moments on screen. Understated amongst the cast though is Kotsur, who doesn't factor into the action much but is great where he does appear. Roberts mutes out the background when he hones in on the perspective of Adam in a few sequences -including one to suspenseful effect- and its a device that could have been utilized more often in the film. This is startlingly Kotsur's first movie role since winning his Oscar almost four years ago -he's charismatic, but he has deserved and does deserve better.
Because in spite of some of its qualities, Primate is a fairly shallow movie, and that is especially apparent in its approach to violence. It is not unusually gory or extreme exactly, but it is notably excessive, mean, and for lack of a better term, edgy. It's as though Roberts feels insecure in the premise of a monster chimp and so goes out of his way to depict its terror in the most graphic terms he can get away with. One character falls to their death when Ben pushes them off a ledge -another movie might let that act be enough, this film makes sure you see their head crushed against the rocks below. In fact Roberts has a particular preoccupation with vivid assaults on the head or face -at least three other characters meet their ends that way. It is distracting in some instances, patently absurd more than frightening in others, and Roberts' instinct towards it on one occasion even impedes a bit of good storytelling -with the violent death of one character who was building towards a bit of a more substantive arc. Diverging from that path for the sake of a gruesome set-piece feels rather cheap and does a disservice to what narrative integrity the film had beyond 'ape goes crazy and kills everyone'.
Not much sympathy is given to Ben either, who fairly quickly goes from cute and humane to monstrous via the apparently supernatural rabies, starkly alienated from any human attachment. A simple, vacant antagonist, whose inhuman features -his teeth, jaw, and long digits are accentuated during beats where he taunts or stalks his targets. It's a bit interesting, Roberts focusing on the aspects of apes that are relatably human-like but not quite human -but nothing much is made of this, and he is ultimately a slasher villain by the end, right down to his seeming invulnerability.
Apart from its gratuitous violence, Primate is essentially exactly what you would expect given its bare premise. It does impress in some aspects of its suspense, particularly around that pool set-piece, and Roberts has a few good instincts for composition and tension -if a couple beats are clearly too drawn out. Its excesses are a bit tacky however, a bit more shocking than outright scary and the aspects of story or character he does set up reasonably well are largely abandoned by the third act for the sake of the horror. There have been worse easy January horror flicks, but there have been better ones too.
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