Review: Primate

It is impossible to dislike a movie where a guy is in a monkey suit.

I have formed a ride-or-die pact with horror workhorse Johannes Roberts ever since I saw 47 Meters Down: Uncaged. I was (and still am) completely enamored with the premise of giant albino sharks haunting submerged Mayan ruins. I remember only two things from seeing the movie: that I started clapping (semi-ironically) after it was over and a guy yelled at me “STOP FUCKING CLAPPING!”, and a fake-out jumpscare where a CGI fish screams into the camera. Check out this video I found on Twitter years ago that still makes me laugh.

The execution was just passable enough to put my butt in the seat for life; the same was true for trailer-park slasher The Strangers: Prey at Night. I missed out on Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City due to some long-forgotten extenuating circumstance but I promise, Mr. Roberts, this will never happen again: I have seen your new movie Primate. I liked it.

If there’s one sentiment I want to get across in this review it’s a pretentious sneer at people who describe this as “a feature-length movie of that one scene from Nope.” Educate yourself in ape attack cinema before making such empty-headed comments. You can start in 1933.

The King.

I do agree with the masses that Nope’s Gordy rampage sequence was a standout. It was probably my favorite part of the movie. But the one thing I can’t condone is the CGI. I will reluctantly stomach CGI birds, deer, dogs, lions (barely), and bugs, but the one animal that should never be CGI is the chimpanzee. Of course, to use a real chimp in Nope would feel a little hypocritical given the themes of the movie. But all the same, it cheapens the thrill.

Ape attack movies like In the Shadow of Kilimanjaro or Phenomena are so enticing because of the inherent danger of a real primate running amok on set. In baboon thriller Shakma, they had to airbrush out the lead animal actor’s throbbing cock in multiple scenes. Ape movies flirt with disaster. It’s like watching Jackie Chan slide down that big chandelier thingy in Police Story. You know it’s insanely dangerous. It’s probably not “okay” to have an actor do that. But that’s why you’re on the edge of your seat. Studios would likely not release a cut of Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning where Tom Cruise actually plummets out of a biplane and pancakes into the ground in a burst of viscera. But they miiiiight…

“90,000 wild baboons suddenly start attacking humans and eating them in order to survive.” In the Shadow of Kilimanjaro (1986).

Even non-horror monkey movies hold some sick fascination for the same reason. A chimp “actor” doesn’t know what’s going on around it. Hot lights, loud noises, strange faces… What’s to stop Dunston from checking out? Since chimps have been in movies the game has been to see how far we can push before they snap. The short-lived 1999 sitcom The Chimp Channel is a poster child for this. You watch scenes of multiple apes dressed in uncomfortable clothes, performing “emotions” on command in service of some of the worst jokes ever written, and it really feels like we are baiting the tragedy. In the same way America unconsciously-but-maybe-consciously summoned 9/11, I feel that we are invoking The Big One of chimp attacks. Have you ever scrolled through an ape-inflected Instagram algorithm? Have you seen the kind of people that have “pet” monkeys? Travis was a mere blip compared to the tulpa currently being conjured. That’s what I liked about Primate– finally a Travis-sploitation flick that feels in direct reference to the 2009 incident, while also cashing in on the ape-obsessed zeitgeist.

In a post-Travis the Chimp world, Primate understands what Nope doesn’t. A chimpanzee needs to be there to register. We see chimps as barely inhuman; when they’re uncanny valleyed our neurons just switch off– at least mine do. It seems that enough time has finally passed since the tragic animal rampage that we can gesture toward it without making a grand statement. Nope wrings its hands, while Primate revels in poor taste. A man dressed in a rubber monkey suit re-enacts vaguely reskinned moments from Travis the Chimp’s bloody oeuvre. Face-ripping, hand-breaking, car door opening, distraught 911 call, it’s all here. It’s like when a tactless Lifetime movie comes out the month after a woman murders her husband, but this one took 17 years.

I’ve seen one too many trapped-in-pool-menaced-by-animal movies (2018’s Thai crocodile flick The Pool was more than enough) but everything that took place outside of the water in Primate was watchable, fun, and nasty. It’s gory and punishing, knows when to make you laugh, and makes great use of a creepy monkey suit. Miguel Hernando Torres Umba performs simian physicality very convincingly, able not just to loom ominously but to fly off the handle and deliver Hulk smashes without going too goofy. He also looks big in that costume, to freaky effect.

If morality and animal welfare dictate that I can’t watch a director needle a real chimpanzee into pretending to be a murderer, I need the filmmaker to at least go the distance in pretending that’s happening. Let me suspend my disbelief. Shakma is not a great movie but it will leave me forever unsatisfied when a monkey movie doesn’t contain the raw physical energy of an erect baboon furiously trying to break down a door. NO MORE CGI MONKEYS OR APES. EVER. If casting a real ape in a movie is unethical, then replace it with a guy in a suit. Period. Primate is a step forward for the future of ape-less ape horror. Drool, hair, and tactile violence.

Outside of some slow stretches, Primate was a welcome surprise. It’s just about the best case scenario for a January horror release. The boring parts are mercifully quick, and the tense parts are mercilessly mean-spirited. Every Johannes Roberts movie I see does at least one thing right enough for me to resolve to see whatever the next one is. Primate is no different. Mr. Roberts– might I suggest making your next movie about a komodo dragon? If not, no worries. Just thought that might be cool. Three stars.