‘Primate’: Solid movie without a solid plot

Usually, I like to look into a movie before I buy a ticket for it. At the very least, I like to read the synopsis, check the cast for any recognizable names and maybe see what the general audience reviews are before I commit to a two or more hour endeavor.

Every once in a while, however, I’ll go to a movie with zero research or expectations going in.

I have an OK track record doing this. My best friend and I saw “The Meg” in middle school when all we knew about it was that there would be sharks, and it turned out to be a solid shark movie. However, we also saw “Morbius” on opening night, when our only expectation was for it to be Spider-Man adjacent (it wasn’t).

Over J-Term, I met up with the same friend to see a movie, but our options were limited. I’d already watched “Marty Supreme,” which has the potential to be the best movie I’ll see in 2026, and there weren’t many other choices that we found interesting. While we were scrolling through the Emagine website, we found a one-word title that neither of us had heard about at all: “Primate.”

“Primate” is a horror movie that knows what its mission is and wants to get started right away. When the opening of a film involves the already rabid chimpanzee tearing someone’s face off less than two minutes in, you can understand why the runtime wasn’t longer.

And when the mission is to have as much blood and gore on the screen, you’re given an idea of what the remaining hour and a half will look like and can pivot to a “Marty Supreme” rewatch if it’s not up your alley.

My friend and I are not big horror fans at all. We’ve adventured into the genre with “Halloween Kills,” “Longlegs” and “Final Destination: Bloodlines” previously, but given a choice, we would take a non-horror movie or a thriller like “Knives Out” over any horror movie. I’m man enough to admit that I get scared pretty easily, which plays a big role in our movie choices.

Despite the opening, neither of us wanted to be cowards (or waste $11.50), so we stuck with the movie through the end.

The plot of “Primate” can be summed up very easily: A family’s chimpanzee catches rabies and goes on a killing spree. Everyone in the house and anyone who shows up are at the mercy of an animal that will deliver a bloody and gruesome death.

As someone who prefers movies with well-thought-out plots and intriguing scripts, it was honestly refreshing to watch something with none of that. The movie knows it’s not supposed to be too serious or have any deep meaning. The audience mostly expects graphic and gory kills from the chimpanzee, Ben. On that front, “Primate” delivers in spades.

The hoodie that I allegedly use to cover my laughs in the newsroom was instead used to shield my eyes during specific moments of the movie. I clearly remember the brutality of the movie, from one character getting pushed off a cliff and getting impaled on rocks to the chimpanzee tearing another character’s jaw clean off.

The movie doesn’t shy away from showing the deaths in full. The camera doesn’t cut away when Ben is tearing through scalps, slamming heads against stairs or beating people with a shovel unless it’s to show the other survivors’ horrified faces.

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Ben’s rampage leaves nearly every person dead except for the main character, Lucy Pinborough, her little sister, Erin, and her father, Adam. One area the movie falters is with its lack of character depth or development. The survivors don’t learn much by the end of the movie beyond “maybe it’s a bad idea to keep a pet chimpanzee.”

Admittedly, I couldn’t remember the names of most of the characters at first. When I said that the plot was simple, I wasn’t lying. The protagonists’ motives throughout the whole movie are to survive the night, but the screentime consists of their failures to accomplish this and the consequences that follow, like getting locked in a car with Ben.

This works if you just want to watch gory deaths without worrying too much about the characters themselves. The characters don’t need to have the same impact as a Laurie Strode in “Halloween” or a Sidney Prescott in “Scream,” but it helps if I could have something to reference a character besides “the main character” or “the main character’s sister.”

Overall, I don’t regret watching “Primate,” but that’s mostly because of the short runtime. My review would be significantly more negative if I were stuck in the theater for more than two hours. I could see why horror fans enjoy this movie, but as someone who usually doesn’t like horror and went in blind, I can only say that I didn’t regret giving up 90 minutes to watch this one.

6/10

@kethanbabu_04

babukc2@miamioh.edu