Primate (A PopEntertainment.com Movie Review)

Primate

PRIMATE (2025)

Starring Johnny Sequoyah, Jessica Alexander, Troy Kotsur, Victoria Wyant, Gia Hunter, Benjamin Cheng, Charlie Mann, Tienne Simon, Miguel Torres Umba, Kae Alexander, Amina Abdi, Albert Magashi, Kevin McNally, Stuart Whelan, Amina Abdi and Kieran Deane.

Screenplay by  Johannes Roberts and Ernest Riera.

Directed by Johannes Roberts.

Distributed by Paramount Pictures. 89 minutes. Rated R.

Screened at the 2025 Philadelphia Film Festival.

If you ever thought that you only get arty movies at a film festival, well here comes something like Primate.

Not that it is in any way a bad movie. In fact it is very slickly and suspensefully made and it does co-star a recent Oscar winner (Troy Kotsur – 2021 Best Supporting Actor for CODA), but eventually it is a very violent film about a killer monkey.

Ben the chimpanzee is actually a beloved pet, brought up in a gorgeous Hawaii homestead by a famous zoologist and her deaf husband and two daughters. While the doctor who originally taken Ben in has since died, dad and the girls still care for him, and use him to experiment in communication between species. (Ben has been taught to make rudimentary statements through a modified “Speak-and-Say” iPad.)

Ben has never shown any sign of violence in the past, but he got into a fight with a mongoose in his compound, and it turns out that the mongoose was rabid. The father is not overly concerned early on, though, because rabies is not supposed to exist on the island. Therefore, when he leaves on a business trip, no one realizes anything is wrong with Ben until he starts to attack people. Therefore the sisters, plus two friends and a few other people who happen by, have to avoid Ben’s frenzied attempts to kill them.

It’s sort of like Stephen King’s Cujo, if Cujo had opposable thumbs and more potential victims.

And that’s pretty much it. Ben the monkey chases people around the compound, breaking things, creating mayhem and ripping people up while the girls hide in the middle of the huge pool, because the chimp can’t swim, so it can’t get to them. In the meantime, the girls have to try to get ahold of a phone to get help.

The film is very chilling, although it can sometimes get kind of ridiculous. For example, even if Ben is particularly intelligent, is the film really suggesting that he knows how to use a car remote? Even if he did figure it out – which honestly seems hard to believe – would he have the finger dexterity to work those small buttons?

Also, what is the chimp’s obsession with ripping apart people’s faces? I mean, I get it a wild animal would go for the most vulnerable areas, but honestly eventually Primate just has too many very explicit killings.

However, much like Ben the chimp, Primate does not show much restraint. And from listening to some of the conversations of people in the theater after the film, it seems that I was in the minority in wanting a little bit less gore. (The guy seated behind me told his girlfriend he wished that one of the more explicit kills was expanded to a “five-minute beatdown.”)

But, even if I think it sometimes went over the top, I have to admit Primate had me glued to my seat throughout the run time. And really, that’s all it wants to do.

Jay S. Jacobs

Copyright ©2025 PopEntertainment.com. All rights reserved. Posted: October 26, 2025.