Primate Review

 

Lucy brings some friends to her Hawaiian cliffside home for vacation, until the family’s adopted pet chimp, Ben, is infected with rabies, then things quickly turn deadly, and the group must fight to survive…

The movie does not start off with the strongest dialogue; the script tries very quickly to establish everyone in their relationships to one another, and so you get a lot of clunky lines that are trying to establish exposition, like “You know I got your back, best friend” and “It’s been so long since I’ve seen you, sister.” And I will admit there are some odd lines throughout the film, like “Boy, I had some bad gas station sushi last night,” but once the actual family gets together, their interactions feel very natural and sweet.

My favorite actor in this was Troy Kotsur (who played the dad in CODA); his character of the dad is very likable, and he brought a lot of emotion to the role that wasn’t necessarily on the page.

The movie has a great location, very tropical and peaceful looking, and the filmmakers are able to get a lot of cool shots out of it.

The characters in this are like the ones you’ve seen in any other slasher movie; they’re young, they want a party, they do drugs, and they get horny. It’s nothing you haven’t seen before. But the cast is solid, and when things get intense, the actors are good at emoting “scared and tense” facial acting.

So Ben the chimp is clearly a guy in a costume, but the filmmaker shoots it in a way that it isn’t too obvious, and the actual prosthetics for the face are very well detailed and convincing. Plus the more ravenous Ben gets, the more creepy, distorted, and slimy it gets (like whoever was in charge of the mouth slobber did a very effective job lol). It definitely adds to the atmosphere of the movie.

I feel like this goes without saying, but I wouldn’t go into this movie looking for realism. Because whatever strand of rabies Ben got turned him into a full-on slasher villain. He’s got a tablet where he’ll type ominous things into, or he’ll jump from somewhere for a bigger jump scare, like he goes full Michael Myers at certain points.

The special effects for the kills are really effective and well done for a small-budget film. Like that opening kill definitely had me going “god damn,” and throughout the rest of the film, all the attacks definitely have a visceral effect that will definitely get people squirming in their seats.

So the characters get trapped in a pool with Ben watching them, and the movie is good about setting up the scenarios of “how are they going to get out of this one?” and the movie did a good job of making me sit there going, “Yeah, how are they going to try and think their way out of this?” Now there was nothing mind-blowing, and there were some helpful conveniences, but in the moment I was definitely interested to see what the characters would come up with.

Yeah, there are two characters added who really are just there to add to the body count who are not very smart, but there was one laugh I got out of it, and one of the characters' kills was one of the more intense of the movie, so that was very effective.

I like the soundtrack; it definitely had a throwback 80s since “John Carpenter” feel, but it had a nice style to it and worked in the scenes well.

Again, there were a couple scenarios where the characters are trying to evade Ben, and you think he’s about to get them or they’re trying to get away, but he keeps getting closer to them that I thought were pretty creative and quite effective and had some fun visuals to them.

So Primate is a killer ape movie. I feel like by that premise alone you’re either going to be with the movie or not, so recommending it is definitely up to the viewer's discretion, but as far as a movie about a killer ape goes, I would describe Primate as solid. It isn’t anything you haven’t seen before, and for most people it’ll be a one and done, but the filmmaking is capable, everyone in the cast and crew does their best, and there are some effective sequences when it comes to the gore and scares. So I would say this movie would just be best enjoyed on a lazy Saturday when you just want to watch a fun popcorn movie. I give the film somewhere between a low and regular three stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️ depending on how you feel about “Killer Monkey” movies, but either way I can definitely say the movie does know how to go… Bananas 🍌 😂