Back at last fall’s Fantastic Fest, I had the opportunity to see Primate at the 2025 Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas. It was the opening festival film. During the Q&A, director Johannes Roberts apologized for making RESIDENT EVIL: WELCOME TO RACCOON CITY. It raises my suspicions that studio shenanigans must have happened in the making of that film. The movie is the exact thing that the director said “I just wanted to somehow remake CUJO in a unique way. PRIMATE is that unique CUJO; instead of a St. Bernard with Rabies going on a killing spree, it is Chimp with Rabies going on a killing spree.
The star of PRIMATE is Ben (Miguel Torres Umbar), an adopted Chimp living with a family in Hawaii. They consider him a member of the family. He previously was doing training experiments to test chimps’ intelligence. It makes him a chimp that can do things another normal chimp cannot do. Yes, you can tell it is not real chimp as a person is inside the suit. The costume looks great as the movie progresses you can see the transformation Ben is going through. At the beginning he is a cute chimp that wears cute clothes, as his rabies progresses his clothes get tattered and dirty. His cute face turns into the face of a creature consumed by madness. Ben starts to look like a supernatural monster. Even his grin looks evil.
Father Adam (Troy Kotsur) leads the family in this movie he is a deaf published writer. He leaves the house to go to a fan book signing event. He leaves his daughters with their friends. They decide to have a party, but the party is over once Ben goes on a rabid rampage through the house. He just wants to kill anyone that gets close to him. The Chimpocalypse has arrived in this house.
Ben the Chimp is more dangerous than Cujo ever was. Cujo could not open a car door. Not only can Ben open a door; but he knows how to use a car clicker. This gives us one of the tensest moments in the entire movie, in which one of the victims is trying to keep the car closed; but Ben keeps opening it to get in. Ben also can climb, so it can surprise you from above. The only safe place is the swimming pool as Chimps can’t swim. I should mention that even in real life the Chimps attack in real life is very gruesome.
PRIMATE does an excellent job in showing the brutality of an angry Chimp. The chimpanzees are well known to go for the soft part of your body, your nose, lips, throat, and testicles. Their fur hides how muscular these animals are if you ever google a hairless chimp. You will see they look like bodybuilders. I can assure you this gore will get under your skin. They do not pull back on the violence in the movie.
The discovery that Ben caught rabies is shocking to the character. You might not know this; but Hawaii is the only state in the USA that does not have rabies. They also have a very draconian policy to screen any animal arriving on the island. The main reason from the beginning is they do not know why Ben is behaving strangely. I also have this running story thread that does not go anywhere about the origin of the rabies; but I believe it could be used to make sequels, and wouldn’t be surprised if it was named PRIMATES.
At Fantastic Fest I was fortunate to see it with an audience that just eats movies like this one, and now that it’s out in cinemas I encourage you to see it with an audience. Do not wait until it goes into streaming as the audience experience just adds to it all. You will see what I mean when you finally watch PRIMATE, which I found to be a magnificent nature gone wild thriller and a great horror movie to start the year 2026. Primate the crazy ape movie to beat this year, unless they release a better killer Chimp movie that I don’t know about yet.
PRIMATE is now playing in theatres.