Primate is a 2026 survival-horror film that follows Lucy and two friends as they spend a weekend at Lucy’s house, where her family keeps an unusually intelligent Chimpanzee named Ben. Ben can communicate in ways that feel uncomfortably close to human—he uses a tablet with words and understands most sign language, which makes him both fascinating and eerie from the start. The weekend is supposed to be an escape, but everything shifts when Ben is bitten by a mongoose and contracts rabies, turning the house into a tense, dangerous environment where the people inside realize they are no longer in control.
The film attempts to be shocking, emotional and meaningful, but ends up being loud, empty and frustrating. The only success of the film was its grasp on horror. The violence is graphic and intense, and the Chimpanzee is genuinely unsettling. In a few scenes, the camera focuses on a character in the foreground while the chimp slowly moves in the background, creating real tension. Those moments are some of the best in the movie because they make the audience feel like danger is creeping in before anyone notices.
Unfortunately, almost everything else falls apart. The film sets up emotional plotlines, including romantic tension and friend dynamics, as if they will matter later, then suddenly drops them completely. Characters connected to those storylines are killed off before any of the emotional buildup pays off, so the relationships feel more like decoration than an actual part of the narrative.
Even the visual style becomes frustrating. Techniques like flipping the camera upside down and repeating the same shots over and over are meant to symbolize the building of tension, but the movie leans on them so often that they stop feeling creative and instead start feeling overdone. Instead of building suspense in new ways, it keeps recycling the same tricks until they lose their impact.
The cast also feels overcrowded with characters who do not contribute much. The movie introduces people who seem like they might make an impact, like the two men who show up to the house expecting a party might have added conflict, depth or even an unexpected twist. However, in the end, they serve no real purpose to the story. Their presence doesn’t change the narrative, and their deaths feel like filler rather than meaningful turning points.
By the end, the plot feels like it goes nowhere. The final survivors don’t seem to represent anything, and the movie doesn’t leave the audience with a clear message or payoff beyond the fact that violence happened. The dialogue is forgettable, and the story never becomes as emotionally gripping as it clearly intended to be.
Primate was able to give viewers a creepy premise along with a few moments of strong visual tension, especially in how it uses Ben’s near-human behavior to create unease. However, the film never builds a story strong enough to support those moments. By wasting its characters, dropping its emotional threads and relying too heavily on repeated camera tricks, the movie ends up feeling empty and pointless rather than powerful and enticing—leaving the audience with some moments of shock, but very little to remember.
