Courtesy of Paramount Footage
“There’s one thing improper with Ben,” reads the tagline of Johannes Roberts’ “Primate,” an efficient little creature-of-the-week chiller, and it couldn’t be extra apt. One thing is very improper with Ben, a pet chimpanzee who contracts rabies, and also you positively don’t need to be wherever close to him when he, forgive me, goes bananas. Not far faraway from the domesticated-horror playbook of “Cujo,” the place a household canine traps a mom and son inside a automotive for practically two hours, “Primate” sticks to the fundamentals and correctly avoids overthinking its easy however sturdy premise.
Roberts leans closely into old-school style craftsmanship, favoring sensible results, shadowy lighting, and a largely single-location setup that provides Ben loads of room to chop unfastened and, nicely, go ape shit. This isn’t a movie overly involved with psychological depth or intricate plotting, however it supplies simply sufficient human element to make the carnage matter. The story facilities on Lucy (Johnny Sequoyah), who returns house to Hawaii after an prolonged stint away in school. She brings pals alongside, reunites together with her household, and settles again right into a family that features her Deaf father, performed by Oscar winner Troy Kotsur, her youthful sister, and Ben, an lovable chimp who has already been contaminated by the point Lucy arrives.
We don’t spend a lot time humanizing Ben earlier than issues take a violent flip, however the movie offers us the necessities. Lucy’s late mom adopted him for analysis functions, and he has since been handled as a beloved member of the household. That home calm doesn’t final lengthy. As soon as Lucy’s father leaves for a enterprise journey, the film wastes little time unleashing Ben as a ferocious, shockingly agile predator who will fairly actually rip your face off. Roberts, who co-wrote the script with Ernest Riera, makes sensible use of the movie’s lean 90-minute runtime, dispatching characters with a gleefully nasty sense of escalation. You possibly can really feel the filmmakers’ enthusiasm within the more and more sadistic methods Ben is allowed to toy together with his prey, and on that entrance, “Primate” exhibits an admirably imply streak.
Ben himself is a significant asset. Delivered to life by means of a mix of sensible results, visible results, and the bodily efficiency of motion specialist Miquel Torres Umba, the chimp is a towering, genuinely intimidating presence. When the movie lastly lets him off the leash, Roberts clearly understands what he has and refuses to tug his punches. The result’s a marked step up in stress and confidence from the director of the admittedly goofy, although nonetheless pleasing, “47 Meters Down.” By retaining the story intentionally uncomplicated, Roberts ensures the movie by no means loses sight of what audiences got here to see within the first place.
The sound design is one other standout, significantly in the way it incorporates Kotsur’s Deaf character to play with shifting views and sudden absences of sound. Adrian Johnston’s rating additional amplifies the unease, layering in a pulsing, techno-driven thrum that retains the movie transferring at an anxious clip. It’s an efficient sleight of hand, distracting from the extra apparent plot holes and lapses in logic. In actual fact, the movie sometimes comes so near mythologizing Ben’s rage that you just virtually end up rooting for him or not less than questioning what impressed this household to fall in love with him to start with. Perhaps Ben actually is misunderstood. Or possibly he simply wanted a leash, a cage, or a significantly better film veterinarian.
“Primate” is aware of precisely what it’s and delivers accordingly: a lean, bloody, unapologetically nasty creature characteristic that thrives on momentum moderately than that means. It might not linger within the thoughts lengthy after the credit roll, however whereas it’s on, it’s a viciously entertaining journey.
PRIMATE opens in theaters Friday, January ninth.