Brutal chimp horror Primate is the most fun you’ll have at the movies this year

The year 2026 is off to a gory start when it comes to the horror genre.

Just two weeks after Sir Jimmy Crystal and his gang wreaked havoc in 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, there is a new figure ready to claw his way to the crown of bloodiest cinematic offering in town. 

His name is Ben. He is a chimpanzee. And there is something wrong with him. 

Set on the idyllic shores of Hawaii, Primate follows college student Lucy (Johnny Sequoyah), who returns after spending several years away following the death of her mother.

Travelling with her best friend Kate (Victoria Wyant) and her not-so-best friend Hannah (Jessica Alexander), she aims to reconnect with her younger sister Erin (Gia Hunter), her deaf best-selling author father (Troy Kotsur) and chimpanzee Ben, who was raised by their scientist mother and taught to communicate via sign language and a handy iPad. 

However, with Dad having to head out on a book tour, the cosy family reunion will have to be put on hold, and the girls decide to have a bit of a party. But why is Ben acting so weird? Could it have anything to do with that pesky Mongoose bite he got earlier that day? It’s not too long until the girls discover that Ben has taken a turn for the worse and only has one thing in mind: bloody and violent torment. 

Primate comes from director Johannes Roberts, the filmmaker behind the 47 Meters Down shark movies, so he is a man who knows a thing or two about animal carnage on screen. Where those movies felt a little larger in scope and dealt with more trying conditions – open water and trying to sell CGI sharks as terrifying – Primate makes moves to be a more contained and practically minded horror exercise, and is all the better for it. 

When a face gets ripped off within the first two minutes, you start to get a sense of the chaos you’re in for with Primate, which puts a palpable sense of dread over the following scenes that set up our characters, as we begin to anticipate when the violent monkey business is going to truly kick off.

While on the surface our characters are a little stereotypical, they are all charmingly played by the young cast of up-and-coming talents, so much so that when said mayhem begins, you care more about these young characters than other B-movie horror movies might endeavour to do. 

The film also makes pains to highlight how isolated these characters are, with pretty much all the action contained to one location, a house out in the middle of nowhere on a cliffside in Hawaii. Sure, it’s a very beautiful house with a pool and lots of fancy amenities, but all its gadgets and gizmos prove useless once the primal brutality of a rabies-raged chimp ends up ruling the roost.

The film’s contained nature, and the characters’ sense of isolation is what gives the film its palpable sense of terror once things inevitably start going wrong. One sustained sequence is very simply designed: our characters trapped in a pool while Ben, who can’t swim, stalks the edge and looks for an opportunity to strike. It’s a simple setup, but the sense of helplessness is genuinely chilling, particularly because we’ve seen what level of violence Ben is capable of.

This is both clearly savvy budget management and an effective means of heightening the horror, giving the film the efficient spirit of an 80s John Carpenter movie (which is also emphasised by a very Carpenter-esque synth-driven score).

Now, let’s talk about Ben. It’s not hard to imagine Ben becoming something of a cult slasher horror figure in the years to come, thanks to a combination of elements. The first is his design and the way the filmmakers and actor Miguel Torres Umba come together to bring him to life.

There’s something refreshingly old-school in the ‘guy in a suit’ approach to Ben, giving the character a tactility that even the finest motion-capture struggles to obtain. It’s also one hell of a suit, with very expressive puppetry on display. Sure, there’s some CGI at play in the more dynamic moments, but it’s very cool to see a lead monster brought to life with such a degree of old Hollywood magic. 

What is also quite surprising is the level that the film goes to when it comes to the carnage. The level of bloody face-ripping violence is shocking and gleefully delivered. It’s all dialled up to the point that, while gruesome, it feels more fun than disturbing, eliciting great reactions from a crowd of bloodthirsty theatregoers as it becomes clear no one is safe from Ben’s bloody rampage.

Again, there’s a good old-school edge to the practical effects on display, with the film rarely choosing to go the easier CGI gore route, and instead goes for buckets of gore and prosthetics, which gives the film a much gnarlier edge. 

Those old school thrills and the dedication to making Ben feel like a genuine menace mark Primate as a genre outing that horror fans simply cannot miss.

It’s the sort of gleeful genre experience that clearly revels in both the sense of anticipation and the actual splatter and viscera once it starts flying, with a sense of self-containment that helps heighten the horror to a nasty and seat-squirming effect. This all helps make the movie, and Ben himself, a cult hit in the making.

Primate is released in UK cinemas on Friday, January 30.

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