Primate (2025) Dir: Johannes Roberts

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Sometimes you just want to switch your brain off for ninety minutes, and that's kind of what I wanted to do with this Johannes Roberts directed horror film. There is just something inherently freaky about a killer primate - I think it's the almost human aspect of them; the bipedal, opposable thumbed, problem-solving intelligence of them. I wanted to see if that would be shown and exploited in an effective way, and some fairly good reviews certainly gave me at least a modicum of hope that I would get my wish.

The fact that the primate in the film was created practically, for the most part, was pretty cool. The man in the suit was Miguel Hernando Torres Umba, and he did a great job of bringing 'Ben' to life. The practical aspects of his character's involvement helped greatly in creating a very real and very uncanny feeling of dread whenever he was on-screen. The execution wasn't always perfect, but, for me at least, the practical side of 'Ben' was far stronger than the CGI side.

From there, however, my feelings on the film took a rather negative slant. The dialogue was extremely poorly written, and screamed of Netflix dialogue, aka, double-screen viewing - perhaps that is the biggest indictment of it I can give. It really was terrible. I hate when a film refuses to allow its audience to work out anything for themselves. It's painful to listen to, and detracts from the film's end-product significantly. I'm not saying this would have been a five-star classic, but it is very clear that a smoother script could have helped this film's case a lot.

The narrative was fine - nothing special, that's for sure. It felt very formulaic and repetitive, at times, but I did think that there was a solid degree of tension built up, and I genuinely quite enjoyed the father's narrative arc and how it linked into the overarching story. I must admit, the film made me feel quite sad, but more because of the terrifying reality of rabies as a disease, as well as how it impacts those infected by it, rather than any particularly good writing.

Johnny Sequoyah produced an adequate yet likable performance in the film's lead role. The writing for characters was fairly average all-around, but I enjoyed how Sequoyah made her connection to the chimpanzee feel so genuine and heartfelt, particularly in the first half of the film. Her on-screen sister; Gia Hunter had some good moments, but her character was extremely absent from the second half of the film, making her presence feel strangely unnecessary for the bulk of its runtime. Jessica Alexander gave a solid account of herself, despite her character's iffy writing, particularly in the first half of the film, where she got to show a little more conventional acting.

I was slightly less enthused by the acting of Victoria Bryant - she wasn't bad, but I didn't find her performance as compelling as the other key actors in the film. Again, much like with the rest of the cast, the writing did her no favours, but I was hoping to see a little more from her nonetheless. Troy Kotsur, best-known for his Oscar-winning performance in the 2021 film; 'Coda', produced a fairly good, albeit smaller than I expected, performance. He such a wonderfully animated face, and he produced some genuinely quite sweet moments with his on-screen daughters.

Overall, I'd say this was a fairly standard horror film, which had its fair share of good and bad. I genuinely did enjoy the film, but I would be lying if I said that it was well-written. Some of the dialogue was genuinely painful to listen to, and the fact that this is now becoming a regular demand of studios frustrates and disappoints me greatly. Regardless, I was still able to enjoy the goopy horror of the film, although I wouldn't have minded them going goopier with it.