Primate Review: A Super Gory B-Movie That Gets An Extra Half-Star From Me For One Specific Reason

I marvel at visual effects. As a millennial cinephile, I have spent my entire life watching the evolution of digital technology on the big screen, and I have had my mind successfully blown many times over from their advancement. The tools have permitted and opened up doors to brilliant creativity and the artists who make it all happen all deserve greater credit from both the film industry at large and audiences alike.

All that being said: I don’t think there are any advanced computer graphics that can top my love of seeing good old-fashioned practical effects being put to proper use in 21st century cinema – and that fact is single-handedly responsible for this review of Johannes Roberts’ Primate being a three-and-a-half star assessment versus a three star take. I freely marvel at what has been accomplished with, for example, the modern Planet Of The Apes movies, but there is something oh so special about seeing the main cast of characters in the film viciously terrorized by an actor in a chimpanzee suit.

As far as modern cinema goes, Primate is the dictionary definition of a B-movie that is perfectly suited with a January release date. It doesn’t have much in the way of artistic aspiration, as it executes a bloody high concept plot without offering much of anything in the way of theme or messaging. It’s built more as a good time at the theater than as a title designed to stick with you long after the credits roll – and if you accept those terms while also having a healthy appreciation for the magic of special effects, you’ll have a fun and diverting 89 minutes.

Primate stars Johnny Sequoyah, Victoria Wyant, and Jessica Alexander star as Lucy, Kate and Hannah – three college-aged friends who begin the story flying to Hawaii going to Lucy’s house after she has spent years away. With Lucy’s successful author father (Troy Kotsur) set to be away for a few days promoting his new book, the young women have the place to themselves, and they plan hours of fun with drinking, smoking weed, and hanging out with boys. The pals are a bit surprised when they discover that Lucy’s family has a pet chimpanzee named Ben (Miguel Torres Umba), but they don’t think too much of it when they recognize the ape as harmless.

What they don’t know, however, is that Ben has recently been bitten by a mongoose infected with rabies and is no longer his friendly, happy self. Before too long, the girls, Lucy’s friend/crush Nick (Benjamin Cheng), and Lucy’s sister Erin (Gia Hunter) find themselves desperately fighting for their lives as the diseased animal starts a violent rampage that sees it try to rip apart anybody who it can reach.

Primate knows what the audience wants, and it delivers just that.

The easiest comparison one can make with Primate would be Cujo, as both stories find its main characters in peril when they are trapped in a single location by a rabid animal – though it must be said that the 2026 film is certainly far dumber. Unlike the Stephen King story and the adaptation from director Lewis Teague, minimal legwork is put in as far as relationships, meaning that there isn’t much in the way of emotional attachment to heighten the peril or audience investment. All of the bonds between characters can all be summed up in fewer than 10 words, and with the exception of Lucy's sororal connection with Erin, none of them have any specific impact on the way that the plot unfolds.

This is the kind of horror movie where most of the humans are set up as simple potential victims, with the most drama it conjures coming from the fact that it’s totally up in the air who will be the next to die… but it still knows how to go about delivering a satisfying experience for its target audience of gorehounds.

It’s made very clear that a significant part of the creative process for co-screenwriters Johannes Roberts and Ernest Riera was, “What are the most gruesome ways a chimpanzee can kill a person?” and then the special effects department had an absolute blast making their disgusting conclusions a reality. Primate sports a really terrible flash-forward prologue that feels like it was included because of a lack of faith in the audience’s attention span, but it does successfully preview what the coming cinematic experience is going to be like with an unflinching shot of a man getting his face peeled off of his skull. It’s an effective tablesetter for what then flows in the next 80 minutes – and what’s even more satisfying is that it’s not ultimately the film’s peak gore moment (I won’t spoil what is in this spoiler-free venue).

The practical effects make an otherwise forgettable movie surprisingly memorable.

In all of Primate’s ape-centric terror, are there any moments when you actually feel as though you are looking at a real chimpanzee? No… but I also can’t say that’s the case with the aforementioned modern Planet of the Apes movies that strive for realism, and I’d say that the entertainment level that I get out of both approaches is about equal. Though I can’t shake the knowledge that I’m looking at a man in an extremely detailed costume, I deeply appreciate the craftsmanship that went into its making, and it manages to feel special in an entertainment environment where practically every genre film and television show features at least one scene where characters stand in a CGI expanse with nothing even remotely tactile around them.

While I can’t sit here in the first half of January 2026 and swear that Primate will be a key title that I will have front of mind in December when it comes to reflecting on the totality of the year’s cinematic adventures, I can definitely say that it will stick in my mind far longer than most early-in-the-year horror released do, and that’s purely a tribute to its nature as a kind of throwback. A lot of it is beyond simple and super cliche, but with a peak awareness of what it is and messy, practical sensibilities, it will succeed in being memorable.