PRIMATE is a 2026 horror movie that I enjoyed for very straight forward reasons: it has a simple premise, executed well, but a little smarter than I expected, and also with some flair. You almost don’t have to mention that it’s a premise with high difficulty to pull off, because the villain is an animal. They always say it’s hard to work with kids or villainous animals.
It’s in the grand tradition of studio horror in that it’s very slick and about pretty young people trying to have a party at Dad’s killer pad while he’s away on business, but it’s much meaner than some of the audience wants these days. It likes most of its characters but doesn’t see that as a reason to spare them. It never felt to me like it was copping out. It means business.
It plays out like a slasher, but it’s also an animal attack movie. At a very basic level it’s CUJO – family pet gets rabies, and is no longer himself. But of course the family pet is a chimpanzee named Ben. His linguist owner taught him ASL, but she died of cancer. Luckily her widower Adam (Troy Kotsur, Academy Award winner for CODA) is a famous novelist who can afford to keep Ben in an enclosure at their beautiful Hawaii estate. His daughters, visiting college student Lucy (Johnny Sequoyah, Dexter: New Blood) and teenage Erin (Gia Hunter, Sherlock & Daughter) treat Ben as a family member and aren’t intimidated by being left alone with him. And when he starts acting up they don’t want to fight him like their visitor does. He’s their brother. They want to talk some sense into him. (read the rest of this shit…)
