Despite being absolutely fucking terrifying creatures, there’s a sense the cinema has inly really scratched the surface with the killer ape movie. Oh, I’ll grant you that they caused a fair amount of damage in any Planet Of The Apes movie you’d care to name and the chimp related sub-plot in Jordan Peele’s Nope still remains a legitimately unnerving experience, but when you stack them up against a bunch of alternatives (Link, Congo, Shakma, In The Shadow Of Kilimanjaro) evolution seems to have skipped a generation.
However, there seems to be a new king of the singers in town that’s repackaged Cujo with a new, simian skin that’s set to deliver all the limb-breaking, face-ripping thrills you’d want with a murderous chimp flick. Call it Deadtime For Bonzo, call it Dunston Freaks out, Christ, call it Wrongo if you really want, but Primate is here to show you what going ape really looks like.
College student Lucy is returning to Hawaii after years away and is nervous about reconnecting either her deaf, famous novelist father, Adam and her younger sister, Erin, who has been experiencing abandonment issues since their mother died. Also making things a little awkward is that her long time friends, Kate and Nick, have chosen to invite Hannah along which causes a bot of friction when the unannounced guest starts flirting with Nick whom Lucy has a long-standing crush on. Regardless, once the group reach Lucy’s swanky, mountaintop home that comes complete with cliff side infinity pool and all the mod cons, she’s soon happy to be home and glad to be reunited with the last, unconventional member of her family.
Ben is a pet chimpanzee who not only is highly intelligent, but has been trained by Lucy’s late mother to communicate with a soundboard, and not only is he pleased to see Lucy again, but seems to be appreciative of the attention he’s getting from the group, even if Hannah is a bit apprehensive. Well, she’s got every right to be, as it turns out that Ben has had a rather unfortunate run in with a mongoose who has gone and given the ape a nasty dose of rabies and as the night wears on, the sickly chimp becomes more and more belligerent as the virus coursing through his veins firmly takes hold.
Before you can say “banana split”, Ben is peeling the face of vets and stalking his former family while Adam is on a book tour and soon a vicious battle of survive takes place as the terrified students try to outwit the crazed simian. But while the kids have numbers on their side and manage to take refuge in the pool where their attacker can’t follow, Ben’s stronger, faster and far more agile, plus, he’s not above ripping off the odd mandible bone when the mood takes him. Will anyone manage to outlast this frenzied murder monkey, or will Ben be the last mammal standing?
While director Johannes Roberts has a fairly fitting track record when it comes to siccing bloodthirsty wildlife on hapless student types, I have to say, his two 47 Meters Down movies didn’t really hit the spot with me as much as they should’ve. However, now that the filmmaker has switched out sharks for a deranged chimp, it seems to have caused the quality of his work to leap from dire (Resident Evil: Welcome To Raccoon City, to decent (The Strangers: Prey At Night), to an incredibly fun night out. Yes, Primate is a big, dumb, killer ape movie, but when you consider all the things that you’d actually want to see from said big, dumb, killer ape movie, Roberts dutifully goes all out to provide as much bang for your buck as he possibly can. As a result, Primate may not be a particularly evolved thriller, but it’s certainly fun and it definitely knows how to get a response out of you.
For a start, Roberts keeps things simple. He doesn’t overplay the characters and gives them just enough drama among them to keep them occupied enough to not notice Ben is practically foaming at the mouth; but when things kick off, he’s also wise enough to drop them all like a bad habit in order not to disrupt the cat and mouse stuff. Johnny Sequoyah’s heroic Lucy may have beef with Jessica Alexander’s frivolous and flirty Hannah to start with, but once the face peeling and skull crushing kicks off, they don’t belabour their issues while they’re in imminent danger and as a result, the film feels nice and lithe. OK, so at times the characters feel thinner than Mr. Skinny at a Mounjaro party, but the danger is more than sufficient to keep you gasping when these attractive cardboard cutouts are threatened with a damn good mauling.
In fact, at times Primate offers a very good mauling as one of the most satisfying aspects of the film is how unrepentantly spiteful it is. All it takes is a quick search on Google to find out exactly how destructive a pissed of chimp can be (face and groin are the first things they go for, apparently) and Roberts seems dead set on making you feel every crunch, snap, rip and chomp as faces are removed entirely, bones are snapped in twain and we’re treated to the most gruesome jaw-dropping, jaw ripping this side of Mirrors. Because of such stand-out moments of gore, Primate manages to be a great film to watch with a receptive audience as Roberts seems have delivered a knack for gasp inducing, “oh shit” moments that would be worthy of one of the better Jurassic Park entries. Be it various plots to subdue Ben that end in messy disaster, or whole slasher film inspired sequences that riff on a hairy Halloween, or a shaggy Shining, Primate succeeds in being genuinely gripping, but also knows the worth of a ghastly kill.
However, possibly the most vital component of Primate is that the film wisely eschews going the Caesar-inspired, digital ape route and instead goes old school by delivering a truly awesome, practical man-in-a-costume approach that would give Rick Baker tingles. In fact, watching a drooling Ben leer at a potential victim from across the room as they’re completely unaware that he’s lurking behind them proves to be enormous fun and it goes to prove what I’ve always known: chimpanzees are just fucking terrifying. On top of that, the film also features a crazily cool, John Carpenteresque synth score that manages to add to the crazy, anything goes, 80s tone of the piece and while it’s hardly a highbrow work of art, it’s by far the best psycho ape film I’ve seen in damn decades.
Lean, mean and spraying blood over the screen, what Primate lacks in depth it more than makes up for in sheer, unadulterated exuberance and frenzied bursts of gore. In fact, if there’s any real justice in the world, Ben should be easily inducted in the killer animal hall of fame alongside Bruce the Shark, Cujo the Saint Bernard and the Piranha who coughed up Jerry O’Connell’s penis in Piranha 3D. If you’re looking for a great, dumb, night out at the movies, it’s prime, mate.
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