Primate Review: January Horror Actually Scary

PRIMATE, from director Johannes Roberts, is a lean, gore-filled horror that will have you on the edge of your seat from start to finish.

PRIMATE key art

Horror in January is an annual tradition. This year’s offering, Primate, from director Johannes Roberts, is a tense and gory creature feature short on story, but filled with thrills.

Lucy (Johnny Sequoyah) is heading home to Hawaii to see her father (Troy Kotsur) and sister (Gia Hunter) for the first time in a while following the death of her mother. She is accompanied by her best friend, Kate (Victoria Wyant), her frenemy, Hannah (Jessica Alexander), and her crush, Nick (Benjamin Cheng). When she gets home, she finds that the family pet chimpanzee, Ben (Miguel Torres Umba), was bitten by a mongoose and is feeling unwell. Her father has to leave for a book signing, so the kids plan a fun weekend alone, but when that sickness is revealed to be rabies, they must figure out how to survive this beloved pet turned violent animal.

My expectations for this movie were admittedly quite low, but Primate managed to keep me on the edge of my seat right from the start. The opening scene sets the tone, and it really doesn’t relent for the 89-minute run-time. The pacing is impeccable, and there is no fat to be trimmed from this movie.

Part of what makes this movie work is the work of Umba as the chimpanzee. His work, combined with the incredible costume and animatronics work of Millennium FX, gives us a villain that has all of the malevolence that you would want without any of the weird interactions that can happen by using a fully CGI animal, but without the danger and time of using a live animal. It is impressive how natural everything looks.

While most of the performances don’t stand out in any particular way, all are well executed, allowing us to enjoy the mayhem. There are some really excellent scream moments, and Sequoyah, Alexander, and Wyant all do a great job of increasing the tension by creeping around, trying to avoid Ben and get out of the situation safely. The one performance of note is Umba as Ben. He lends a lot to the film, allowing the other performances to shine as well.

One aspect of Primate that is effective and I wish could have been used a bit more is with Kotsur and his deafness. There is an excellent sequence near the end that is shot largely in silence as he walks through the house, trying to find his daughters. It is absolutely terrifying, I just wish it had been a little bit longer. I also think that would have required more storytelling, and this film is a lot more about carnage than character development.

I tend to like movies where you can dig into the themes and find something meaty going on, and that’s not really what Primate is about. It provides horror and mutilation and not much else. If there’s anything to be gleaned from this movie, it’s that sometimes the things that you think are safe are just a step away from ripping your face off.

Rating: 4/5

This review originally appeared in The Dominion Post on January 10, 2026.