‘Primate’ Review: Fine-Enough Killer Chimp Movie Will Beat You Over the Head

Directed by Johannes Roberts, this creature feature really didn't overthink it.

“There’s something wrong with Ben,” and several things wrong with “Primate” — a killer chimp outing that’s plenty bloody but grows more boring than brutal as the carnage rages on.

Directed by Johannes Roberts, this Hawaii-set creature feature goes for the throat in the cold open with a spectacular dismemberment gag that works well… the first time. But even with his film clocking in at just 1 hour and 29 minutes, the divisive filmmaker behind “Strangers: Prey at Night” can’t help but fall into a loud, bludgeoning sameness. The result feels more like an ill-maintained theme park ride than a proper horror movie, and ham-fisted ferocity overtakes the genuine promise of a rabies-addled ape hunting down the humans he loves. The core fun feels dumber than fans of something like “Cocaine Bear” might’ve hoped, and the movie ultimately swallows its human ensemble despite their best efforts.

“Primate” casts “Coda” Oscar-winner Troy Kotsur as the recent widow of a linguistics professor. An author, he’s still raising their two daughters and adopted chimpanzee son, Ben, in a tropical bungalow near the ocean. It’s the sort of property you’d usually find on a Netflix dating show, and eldest Lucy (Johnny Sequoyah) proves about as good at puzzles and interpersonal relationships as most reality TV stars. She’s home for the summer to visit her dad and sister Erin (Gia Hunter) with her two friends in tow. Best friend Kate (Victoria Wyant) has known about Ben for years, but shallow, hanger-on Hannah (Jessica Alexander) gets surprised by the chimp and instantly suggests someone “shoot it.”  Smart girl.

By the time local love interest Nick (Benjamin Cheng) arrives — quietly teeing up a love triangle between himself, Lucy, and Hannah — the glass-paned, island house has more than enough victims and intrigue to entice evil Ben out to play. The empathy table is set well before then, too, as the cuddly chimp toddles around like Paddington Bear, speaking to his family through American Sign Language and a tablet he’ll soon use to make bonafide death threats. Co-written by Roberts and Ernest Riera, their story might’ve benefited from more time with cute Ben in that first act. But no amount of adorable anthropomorphic messaging can account for the screenwriters’ screaming lack of research and zero likable characters.

“Show, don’t tell” is a helpful tip for overcoming language barriers, and it’s common wisdom for most filmmakers. But with barely enough imagination to find the lowest hanging fruit, in both suspense and humor, “Primate” stretches for time with two-step-like pacing that feels more equestrian (or bovine) than anthropoidal. The young adults band together when they realize they’re home alone and Ben is sick from a mongoose bite. But even battling a lethal, face-shredder with more strength than anyone in this production could consistently conceive of, they’re incapable of working together or sustaining believable tension as a cast. Instead, they’re forced to simultaneously say — and then immediately do — random actions with no evidence of forethought, and they suffer the consequences like the bipedal meat-sacks they are.

Armed with some truly egregious misinformation about chimpanzees — and not far from the siren song of a cliffside infinity pool (yikes) — the victims are thrust into a narrative enclosure as much in need of reinforced logic as it is creative enrichment activities. There should be more than enough trouble for Ben to get into as the feverish pet decides to hunt through a suburban home he ostensibly knows well. But “Primate” reveals itself as an insecure tantrum in its own right, throwing extra bodies where cleverness, timing, and restraint should be. Then it fills those tonal cracks with a slew of “monkey” jokes that greeting cards and “Curious George” porn parodies have both done better before. 

The score, a nondescript pop-synth mood (feat. a single Charli XCX track) is something of a head-scratcher, but enjoyable enough, too. It might work better as a matter of genre if Ben were eventually unmasked as the Zodiac Killer, or revealed as the snooty maître d’ of an elite Honolulu wine club. But “Primate” has bigger fish to fry than hiding behind an ill-fitting rhythm and pretty scenery. Unnatural to the point of feeling emotionally alien, the script feels like a first draft made at full force.

What’s worse, it’s chock full of disprovable “facts” that get lazier as they go. (Can chimps swim? Here, it’s really important to know, actually!) Hitting the books would’ve benefitted Roberts and Riera, if only because learning more about real chimps might’ve inspired them to invent a richer fictional world. Sure, the jump-scares are wild; the beatings are bananas; and at a certain point, you have to laugh. But Ben deserved better than a cage so primitive and a better owner might’ve really let him run free.

Grade: C

From Paramount, “Primate” is in theaters on Friday, January 9.

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