In the opening scene of Johannes Roberts’ “Primate,” a dumbbell wearing a loud Aloha shirt visits a chimpanzee habitat, makes annoying wisecracks to the visibly unhappy chimp and, within seconds, gets his face ripped off.
We know why this happened.
A pre-title card informs us that chimps who catch rabies can become dangerously aggressive. I suspect a more plausible reason for this scene, as well as the entire movie: someone suggested in a studio meeting that the simian attack scene in Jordan Peele’s “Nope” (2022) was far too subtle.
We meet a group of dumb, attractive teenagers, whose characters can be summed up as The Stoner Guy, The Sober Responsible One, The Hot Girl Who Will Die Immediately, The Younger Sister of the Responsible One, etc.
The actor with the most to do is Trot Kotsur, the wonderful, Oscar-winning actor of “CODA” (2021). Kotsur is playing an author who apparently writes awful books (sporting titles like “A Silent Death”) and has a pet chimp, whom he forces to wear an ugly red t-shirt, in his fancy cliffside home.
Clearly, Kotsur deserves better. So does the audience.
This chimp slasher movie devolves into a trapped-in-a-swimming-pool-with-a-killer-chimp thriller. The whole thing is set on Oahu, which is conveyed with lots of Aloha shirts, beach vistas and “Hawaii” signs, but the end credits (and unconvincing art direction) reveal this was filmed nowhere near a Hawaiian island.
Speaking of unconvincing, the core threat, Ben the Chimpanzee, is either a guy in a suit or an animatronics puppet but, either way, it never looks remotely real. It actually helps, as this is a hateful exploitation flick, not about a ravenous jungle creature turned bad but, far more dubious, a domesticated, ASL-speaking chimp, the kind featured in Francine Patterson’s 1978 children’s book, “Koko’s Kitten.”
I get it, nothing is off limits in the horror genre (Exhibit A. the recent “Winnie the Pooh”-inspired kill-fest). Yet, the ick factor in this is off the charts, which some genre fans will be happy to note.
Some of “Primate” is truly vile, such as the ample, showy gore set pieces where faces are yanked off and eaten. Much of the film is unintentionally hilarious. I’ll give Roberts proper credit for making a technically competent film, and I loved the bit where the chimp knows how to use a key fob to catch a victim.
Otherwise, I spent the running time rolling my eyes in disgust or laughing at it in contempt.
I’m old enough to remember the 1986 Richard Franklin thriller, “Link,” which starred Elisabeth Shue and Terrence Stamp and is just like this movie, only with one teenager instead of a half dozen. “Link” was also a stinker, though I’d rather revisit that one than suffer through this again.
The moments that try to tap into Ben the chimp’s tortured transformation and stifled humanity are the worst – the filmmakers and sadistic screenwriter don’t care about this animal and are just setting up another moment where the creature will perform more unwanted dental surgery on a cluster of dumb characters.
How stupid are these people? The realization that Ben the chimp has rabies arrives absurdly late, as does the suggestion that getting in a pool can protect the cellphone-obsessed teens.
Another character comes rushing back to his house, which has obviously been trashed by the chimp, but is distracted enough by a slice of pizza to miss the danger standing right behind him. Yet, if anyone in this movie acted like a rational human being and called the proper authorities early on, the story would have wrapped up after 11-minutes.
Here’s a small way to improve this awful movie: rather than a forgettable title like “Primate,” why not call it “The Chimpening” or “Furious George?”
One Star (out of four)