Primate, Johannes Roberts’ latest outing, is a lean, unpretentious monster flick: No heavy-handed allegory, no metaphorical monsters, just pure, thrilling popcorn entertainment. Refreshingly confident in its own simplicity, the film starts with a bang and, at a lean 89 minutes, never lets up, ripping along at a ferocious pace that recalls the best kind of old-school genre cinema.
The film rides on genuinely brilliant, old-school practical effects that bring Ben the chimp thrillingly to life. In a world stuffed with CGI, there’s something wonderfully tactile – and eerily terrifying – about seeing a creature that feels like it’s actually there in the frame. Roberts builds various edge-of-the-seat moments almost entirely in silence, sidestepping the usual loud stings and jump-scares. When the music finally kicks in, it’s a superb John Carpenter–inspired score that prowls and pulses, really driving the tension home.
The characters might not be carrying suitcases full of backstory – more broad strokes than deep dives – but the cast throws themselves into the material with wholehearted abandon, and in a film like this, that energy counts for everything. Performances across the board sell the peril and the stakes, with Troy Kotsur bringing warmth and grit as dad, making the audience root for the humans as much as they fear the beast.
There is a pulpy loose end here: Hawaii is a rabies-free island, so how exactly did a mongoose become infected and end up in Ben’s cage? Roberts has already stated that we’ll next see the origins of the outbreak, so stay tuned. For now, Primate stands tall as a lean, mean, expertly crafted creature feature — a reminder that sometimes all you really need is a great monster, great craft, and the confidence to keep things brutally, beautifully simple.
VERDICT:
Paramount releases Primate in UK theaters on January 30, 2026.
