‘Primate’ unleashes night of terror

(News4UsOnline) – Alright, let’s get straight to the gist of the Paramount released film Primate. Ben is a bad monkey. There are a lot of jump scare moments throughout the film. There is also a lot of blood and a lot of violence.  

All inflicted by a pet chimpanzee who caught a bad batch of rabies. When watching Primate, there are a lot of talking back to the screen opportunities moviegoers will have. Yes, Primate is one of those films. 

This is one of those movies that will have you rooting hard for the underdog to overcome their adversity while at the same time, you’re eagerly pulling for a sadistic monster to be taken down.  

Primate is a film that basically centers around a group of young adults getting together for some fun activity having an unforeseen date with evil. Young people are going to do what young people are going to do. The spoiler in all of this is Ben. 

Ben is the clear star in Primate with his human counterparts depicted simply as helpless subjects being cast down as nothing more than second-class citizens as the monkey flips his lid and goes on a demonic, almost possessed-like rage.   

The one thing about Primate is that it kicks off the New Year as one of those movies where horror meets thriller. While scary at times, the movie is both fun and entertaining and moves along at a breakneck pace. 

Primate begins innocently enough as college friends Lucy (Johnny Sequoyah), Kate (Victoria Wyant), and Hannah (Jess Alexander) fly home and arrange a possible get together with a couple of cute boys (young men) they meet on the plane at a tropical place they call home that would make the Island of Bahamas envious. 

Unfortunately, sometimes the best-laid plans can go awry. Instead of a night of fun and revelry, Lucy, Kate, Hannah, and Erin ( Lucy’s sister) have to deal with a diabolical Ben, who has gone mad and begins his scare-a-thon session by a pool. 

What’s the pool got to do with it? This is where the movie is mostly centralized as Lucy and her college pals try to escape the over aggressive antics of Ben. Hannanh and Kate try to fire off a warning salvo to Lucy about her pet monkey, but people don’t want to listen to reason these days.   

Soon enough, the trio of college buddies and Erin all find themselves trying to save themselves from the now menacing presence of Ben. They do so by hanging out in the pool. 

Chimpanzees generally can’t swim or have difficulty doing so. This gives Lucy and her friends a bit of a reprieve. That is until almost everybody decides to play hero ball and is systematically met, one-by-one, with the same fate in Ben’s murderous romp. 

There are some interesting tidbits the film shares. One, don’t go to any place where you cannot be rescued or saved, especially on a remote island in the middle of nowhere. In this case, it is implied the beautifully scenic backdrop is Hawaii. 

Secondly, while you’re out in the middle of nothing but nature, you might want to bring something along to help you protect yourself and your loved ones. When Ben goes about his pathway of extreme violence, blood and gore, I kept wondering to myself, “Is there a weapon in the house?” 

Can someone please take this chimp out of his rabid misery? The answer for Lucy, Kate, Hannah, and Erin would be an emphatic no. The bumbling friends can’t even get to their cellphones fast enough to make a 911 call, thus their fate would lie in trying to outsmart the primate.

That turns out to be a bad idea. It is not until Lucy and Erin’s dad (Troy Kotsur) guilt-trips himself to go home to see his daughters that finality hits home in this situation. The whirlwind night of mayhem does not happen, though, if Lucy and Erin’s pops (Adam) actually addresses a critical situation early with Ben. 

Adam casually brushes it off, setting off a chain of events that leads to a night of survival for the friends and his daughters. 

“Primate” opens in theaters Jan. 9, 2025

Photo Cover Credit: Gia Hunter as “Erin” and Johnny Sequoyah as “Lucy” in Primate from Paramount Pictures. | © 2025 PARAMOUNT PICTURES. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED