Monkey Shines

Primate is an enjoyably ridiculous movie, which begins as a high-concept horror concept—a rabid, intelligent chimpanzee stalks a group of gorgeous college-aged women, throughout a beautiful cliffside home—which gradually becomes more and more ridiculous, until by the end it’s a comedy. It’s a film that the early-January release calendar was made for. Primate was directed by British filmmaker Johannes Roberts, who previously made 47 Meters Down and sequels to The Strangers and Resident Evil. It was the opening night film at last year’s Fantastic Fest.

The premise is that Lucy (actress Johnny Sequoyah) is heading back to her home in Hawaii for a vacation with her best friend (Victoria Wyant), a friend of the friend (Jessica Alexander), and a dude (Benjamin Cheng) who’s intent on seducing at least a couple of them. Lucy’s family consists of her younger sister and her deaf father (CODA Oscar winner Troy Kotsur), an author of airport novels whose titles all start with the word “Silent.” Their mother is recently deceased, but there’s one more member of the family: Ben, a chimpanzee, who’s more intelligent than average.

But very early on, the chimp’s infected with rabies, becomes hyperviolent, and most of the rest of the film has situations of the characters trying to avoid being mauled to death by this pet that was friendly until recently. (Ben the chimp, I gather, wasn’t played through CGI or motion capture, but rather the old-fashioned way, by a guy in a chimp suit.)

Sequoyah, who, like most unfamiliar young actresses, is the star of a streaming show that I don’t watch—in her case, one of the multiple Dexter spinoffs—more than holds her own at the center of the film. There are some interesting interpersonal relations between the characters, including her and one of the other girls hating each other, and two bros from the plane ride, whom they keep inviting to visit, but most of that ends up overtaken by the chimp attacks. In a way, that’s a benefit. I liked that the film establishes a tragic and traumatic backstory, in which Lucy’s mother recently died, and that’s kept her from coming home for a long period… and rather than this forming a key part of her motivation, none of it’s ever mentioned again.

The gorgeous home, built on a Hawaiian cliffside, is a more impressive character than any of the humans or the chimp. On top of being an architectural marvel, the film does a great job establishing its layout and making it clear, say, how far a character needs to go to retrieve a cell phone at a crucial moment. Less impressive is the camera work in the kill scenes, which, for the most part, are delivered through either shaky-cam nonsense or a sort of extreme close-up that only makes what’s going on partially visible.

Primate is entertaining silliness.