by Cain Noble-Davies
Worth: $14.50
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Johnny Sequoyah, Jessica Alexander, Troy Kotsur, Victoria Wyant, Gia Hunter, Benjamin Cheng, Miguel Torres Umba
Intro:
… primitive but surprisingly effective.
After striking out with Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City, it may not have been entirely advisable for writer/director Johannes Roberts to return to the fears of water that codified his mainstream breakthrough with the 47 Metres Down films… but credit for finding an interesting niche to explore within that realm. Opening with text describing the historical reference of rabies as ‘hydrophobia’ and then its eventual naming from the Latin word for madness, the film sets its goals immediately and simply: Things are quite literally about to go apeshit.
Now, the plot itself as constructed by Roberts and co-writer Ernest Riera is cobbled together from familiar parts, even considering its chimpanzee core. A group of young adults, who are varying degrees of knowingly irritating, are planning to party down at an opulent house on the Hawaiian coast without older supervision, with a couple of impressively-douchey dude-bros crashing the party at one point; this could be the setup for any garden-variety slasher of the last several decades. As for the titular threat, a pet chimp named Ben (Miguel Torres Umba), there are elements of Congo in the tech-assisted communication surrounding them, along with ample amounts of Cujo in the contrasting of their initially-friendly nature with the unholy terror they become once the rabies set in. Hell, there might be a strand or two of the sitcom subplot from Jordan Peele’s Nope in here too.
And yet, the familiarity never truly gets in the way of how well Roberts, DP Stephen Murphy, and editor Peter Gvozdas handle the fundamentals. The former is still resorting to cheap, eyeroll-inducing jumpscares on occasion, but not nearly as often as before. Instead, Primate actually takes its time to build tension and letting the thrill of Ben on the hunt to properly sink in, along with genuine creativity in framing, like a topsy-turvy green-out, and the first-person sound editing for Adam (CODA’s Troy Kotsur).
The gore is especially well-handled, as there’s a terrific balance between just how graphic it gets with all the beating of chests and removal of jaws, and not letting it get overexposed to the point where the audience can adjust. Even the cheaper jumpscares find a nice rhythm, aligning with Ben’s own murderous intent, before going in for the kill, crossing over from annoying to begrudgingly fun after a while.
While the characterisation isn’t quite there compared to the raw genre thrills on offer, there’s still interesting atmospheric work being done with the script here. Framed around the work of Adam’s late wife, a linguist who taught Ben how to communicate, the flashes of sympathy for Ben at the behest of his own rabidity gives way to an idea that helps bring a more cerebral scare to the proceedings: breaking down language barriers, even between species, still isn’t enough to create total understanding. Technology can only reveal so much about nature’s workings, and when it starts to fail, it all comes back to the oldest rule: survival of the fittest. As much as Roberts plays into the classic horror stereotypes, it’s that kind of throughline that shows that he actually gets the underlying notion that makes these kinds of creature features effective.
Primate is primitive but surprisingly effective. Johannes Roberts is still relying on horror stereotypes, both written and technical, but for a quick-and-bloody hour and a half, he manages to find a way to indulge those predilections while still offering a lot of tense atmosphere, inventive film craft, and an approach to on-screen carnage that is somehow both gloriously over-the-top and reserved. It is categorically the best film he’s made to date, and a fun chance to have a good-natured rattle and jump in your seats.
