Cover Your Eyes, Primate is Bloody, but That’s About It

Ummo
4 hours ago
3 min read

Our Film and TV journalist, Ummo, attends the premiere of Primate and leaves feeling that the chimpanzee-goes-crazy gorefest lacks the depth it seems to aim for... but perhaps that’s okay?

If you’ve ever wondered what would happen if Hush, Scream, and Jaws had a baby — and that baby was a pet chimpanzee who went rabid and tried to kill your family — that baby would be Primate.

While researching for this review, I learned that Primate fits within the animal horror genre, in which terror arises when humans lose control over the natural world. It’s a genre built on humans’ assumption that they sit comfortably at the top of a hierarchy, viewing animals as separate and subordinate, particularly those that are not domesticated. From a posthumanist lens, Primate had the potential to dig into ideas of human arrogance, animal exploitation, and the ethical gray area of keeping a wild animal as a pet. It could have even explored the possibility of human-animal symbiosis. However, Primate keeps these ideas largely on the surface and does not meaningfully engage with them.

Watching the film also stirred up a very specific memory from my first year as a psychology student, when I spent weeks observing a chimpanzee’s behaviour for a lab report. Chimpanzees are often studied due to how closely they resemble humans, so that experience immediately came to mind while watching this film, and it’s why I wish I had seen more of Ben being a part of their family. We see Lucy greet him when she returns from college, and that’s it. I wanted glimpses of a younger Lucy with a younger Ben: their day-to-day interactions, the routines, the love that exists between pets and their parents.

Instead, we only see Ben after he’s already become evil. This absence of emotional groundwork is exactly where Primate loses its juice. The film’s backstory strongly suggests a deep bond, but unfortunately, the film rarely shows it. On top of that, Ben’s transformation feels abrupt, with little emotional impact. One second he was the lovable pet under Lucy’s sister’s bed, the next he was a killing machine. When they attacked him in defence, I didn’t feel any remorse towards him.

The pacing is slow in the first act, focusing on establishing character relationships yet these relationships ultimately falter. Most of the characters are forgettable, and by the end, Lucy is the only one who truly stands out. She loosely fits the “final girl” archetype, and I appreciated that she survives not out of luck, but because she genuinely cares about her family.

Where the film truly shines is in its practical effects and gore. The gore is easily the most memorable aspect of the film. As a fan of the Saw franchise, I found myself enjoying the creativity and intensity of the kills, even when they were difficult to watch. It was definitely a mouthful to take in…. if you know, you know.

Primate does not reinvent the horror genre, nor does it attempt to. It is intense, gory and chaotic. As someone who gravitates toward horror films that use fear as a vehicle for social commentary, such as Us or The Platform, I found Primate somewhat limited in ambition. Those films use discomfort to explore inequality and human behaviour, whereas Primate does not attempt this.

While many aspects of the film are forgettable, certain images and moments linger uncomfortably in memory. Watching it made me realise that horror does not always need to say something profound or leave the audience with a moral takeaway. Sometimes, it simply needs to make you cover your eyes.

In that regard, it is a bloody success.