Primate

The makers don’t mess about with Primate. The opening ten minutes tells the viewer in no uncertain terms what is in store for them.

Lucy (Johnny Sequoyah) is returning to her home on Oahu for a summer visit. As she lives on the American mainland she has to fly, accompanied by some friends and she makes the acquaintance of a couple of jocks on the way too.
Her writer father Adam (Troy Kotsur) is deaf-mute and lives in a large, isolated house with Lucy’s younger sister Erin (Gia Hunter) with whom she has a complicated relationship since the death of their mother.

Along with Lucy are Kate (Victoria Wyant), Hannah (Jessica Alexander), and Kate’s brother Nick (Benjamin Cheng). Also in the house is Ben a trained chimp who was taught to communicate by Lucy and Erin’s late mother. By and large he is friendly and is well used to humans.

Adam has to go away on a book promotion tour, so the guests decide to take advantage of the luxurious house’s facilities, and party.

This all takes place 36 hours before the film’s intro. From that and what they have seen the audience should deduce that Ben is highly intelligent, very strong, and suffering from an illness that causes him to fear water.

Ben’s change of character is dramatic, violent and bloody. The only recourse the group have is to the large swimming pool on the property overlooking a sheer cliff.

With Erin having received a savage bite from Ben, and them having worked out what is wrong with the chimp, time is of the essence. What follows are various escape attempts, vicious killings and the return of the jocks (following an earlier call from Lucy).

It’s reasonable to put forward this sequence was set up earlier for no reason other than director Johannes Roberts and co-writer Ernest Riera probably didn’t want to kill off anymore of the main cast but needed the gore to continue flowing.

There isn’t much here that hasn’t been seen before. Its classic wildlife on the loose and animal rampage stuff. That however is no reason to criticise this film as it is very well done, and terrific entertainment, with a good deal more tension that could be expected. A lot of the credit should go to the cast who perform without any indication that this is anything other than a serious project.

Full marks to the special effects team who do an excellent job creating some grisly practical effects. Also to Colombian movement specialist Miguel Torres Umba, who as Ben turns in a very convincing performance.

Primate received its UK premiere at FrightFest Halloween 2025.