GO BEN-ANAS WITH PRIMATE

 “There’s something wrong with Ben.”

Bad monke! Lucy (Johnny Sequoyah)travels to Hawaii with her bff Kate (Victoria Wyatt) and Kate’s friend/third wheel Hannah (Jess Alexander) to visit her estranged family. Lucy’s mom, a brilliant linguist, died around a year prior and her leaving Hawaii was seen as an abandonment by her deaf and mute father Adam (Troy Kotsur) and little sister Erin (Gia Hunter). Adam is leaving for three days to promote his book, and Lucy’s childhood crush Nick (Benjamin Cheng) is invited over to help housesit and possibly party. 

The festivities come to an abrupt halt when Ben, the family’s pet Chimpanzee and Lucy’s mom’s project, starts to act strangely. A night prior, a wild mongoose broke into Ben’s enclosure, biting him and infecting the chimp with rabies. The once friendly and sweet chimp quickly turns homicidal, going BEN-Ana’s and  trapping the friend group in the pool and slowly picking them off one-by-one.

Primate is directed by Johannes Roberts (Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City, 47 Meters Down, The Strangers: Prey at Night) and written by Ernest Riera and him. The screenplay isn’t anything to go ape over, but is still acceptable for what this film is. There’s only around 20-25 minutes before Ben goes feral, meaning we don’t have to wait very long to get to the good stuff.  The direction by Roberts is competent, and the cinematography by Stephen Murphy is effective at times. The score by Adrian Johnston is quite good as well. 

The best actors here are Troy Kotsur and Johnny Sequoyah. Both are compelling and likable, and having Kotsur as one of the leads adds much humanity to the proceedings. Most of the friend group are likable enough, with the exception of Hannah who immediately reveals herself to be a bitch. That said, she unexpectedly proves to come in handy when the bananas hit the fan. 

Ben is the reason most are going to see Primate, and he is a threatening, savage, and terrifying presence. He seems to mostly be brought to life by an actor in a chimp suit, with minimal CGI utilized. While going the full CGI/mo-cap route might have worked best (you can definitely tell it’s a chimp suit), props should still be given for the choice to go old-school with the effects. Primate treats Ben like a slasher killer as he stalks, torments, and even teases our leads. He still mostly acts like an animal, but he can seem almost too human or intelligent at times (a forgivable sin, if you ask me. Chimps are the 2nd closest living relative to man, after all).

Primate doesn’t have much fluff, depth, or intelligence to it. It doesn’t waste time with deeper themes or character development, instead choosing to focus fully on Ben wrecking holy hell on our group. The carnage Ben doles out is bloody, gory, brutal, savage, and intense. The kills are satisfying and gnarly.

Primate is clearly heavily influenced by Cujo, except instead of a rabid dog, we’re dealing with a rabid chimp and instead of our crew being confined to a car, they’re trapped in a pool (though there is a great scene set within a car later on). If you’ve come to Primate looking for something beyond a chimpanzee going on a murder spree, you’re going to be sorely disappointed. Nope this is not. However, if all you want is a fun, intense, and gory time starring an out-of-his-mind chimpanzee murdering his human owners, you could certainly do worse than Primate.

4 STARS