Benjamin Cheng, Charlie Mann, Fantastic Fest, film festivals, Gia Hunter, Hawaii, horror, Jessica Alexander, Johannes Roberts, Johnny Sequoyah, Miguel Torres Umba, movies, Primate, reviews, Rob Delaney, Tienne Simon, Troy Kotsur, Victoria Wyant
January 16, 2026
by Carla Hay
Directed by Johannes Roberts
Some language in American Sign Language with subtitles
Culture Representation: Taking place in Hawai’i, the horror film “Primate” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few Asians and black people) representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: A chimpanzee named Ben, who lives with a human family in a cliffside home, gets rabies and goes on a deadly rampage.
Culture Audience: “Primate” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of horror movies about animals that turn homicidal.
“Primate” is exactly what you might expect from a horror movie about a beloved pet that gets rabies and turns into a raging killer. It’s schlocky and suspenseful, but it doesn’t pretend to be a groundbreaking movie. This is the type of horror flick that relies on lapses in logic from the main characters, but some of these illogical actions can be forgiven because they’re done while people are panicking. People have done a lot stupider things in real life-or-death situations.
Directed by Johannes Roberts (who co-wrote the “Primate” screenplay with Ernest Riera), “Primate” had its world premiere at the 2025 edition of Fantastic Fest. The movie takes place in Hawai’i but was actually filmed in the United Kingdom and on Portugal’s Madeira Island. Much of the movie’s horror comes from the fact that the Hawai’i does not have indigenous rabies, so when the pet chimpanzee in the story gets infected with rabies, it’s a massive surprise to the people in the household.
“Primate” begins by showing the pet chimpanzee doing his first human killing, which happens at night. The chimp’s name is Ben (played by Miguel Torres Umba), and he’s kept in a large cage in the backyard of the home of a scientist named Adam Pinborough (played by Troy Kotsur), who has raised Ben since Ben was an infant. Adam is a widower who happens to be deaf. His wife, who was a linguistics professor, raised orphaned Ben as part of an academic study on primates learning human forms of communication.
Adam had asked his veterinarian colleague Doug Lambert (played by Rob Delaney) to check on Ben because Adam had noticed that Ben has a recent bite mark from a mongoose. Doug brings some snacks to entice Ben, who comes from out of the shadows and drags Doug into the cage. The sounds that are heard after that make it obvious that Doug has been slaughtered by Ben.
“Primate” then flashes back to 36 hours earlier, to show the characters who will later be trapped in the house with rampaging Ben. Lucy Pinborough (played by Johnny Sequoyah), who is about 18 or 19 years old, is on an airplane flight to go back to her home state of Hawai’i for a summer vacation after her first year in college. She is accompanied on this trip by her longtime best friend Kate Hodges (played by Victoria Wyant) and Kate’s friend Hannah (played by Jessica Alexander), who is a rival to Lucy for Kate’s attention. Lucy and Hannah don’t really like each other, and Kate is caught in the middle trying to keep the peace among them.
Lucy is also envious of Hannah because Hannah is a confident “party girl,” while Lucy is a straight-laced introvert who is insecure when it comes to dating. Hannah thinks Lucy is a nerdy and sheltered misfit. Lucy has had a crush for years on Kate’s brother Nick Hodges (played by Benjamin Cheng), who still lives in the same Hawai’i hometown where they all grew up. Nick doesn’t feel the same way about Lucy and treats Lucy like she’s his younger sister. You can easily predict the love triangle that happens after Nick meets seductive Hannah.
On the airplane, Hannah and Kate flirt with two guys who are about the same age: Drew (played by Charlie Mann) and Brad (played by Tienne Simon), who are good pals with each other. Lucy, Hannah and Kate tell Drew and Brad that they will be staying at Lucy’s cliffside house and hint that they’d like to meet up with the guys later to party with them at the house. They all exchange phone numbers.
When the three women arrive at the house, Lucy finds out that her younger sister Erin Pinborough (played by Gia Hunter), who’s about 14 or 15 years old, has a lot of resentment toward Lucy because Lucy cut off communication with Erin for several months because Lucy was too caught up in her new life away from home. Erin feels abandoned and neglected by Lucy. Lucy tells Erin that she’s sorry, and the two sisters begin to mend their estranged relationship.
Hannah is very frightened when she first sees Ben, but everyone assures her that Ben is a harmless family pet. Ben can communicate in limited ways by using a soundboard. One of the things that Adam’s wife was trying to do when she was alive was find ways to improve communication between primates and humans. You can bet that this soundboard will be featured prominently in the movie.
Adam is a published author who has to travel to promote his most recent book. He will be away for a few days, and the teens use his absence as an opportunity to party. Before Adam leaves, he makes arrangements for Doug to do a medical check-up of Ben about the mongoose bite. This check-up results in Doug’s death that is shown in the beginning of the movie. Doug’s visit happens after Adam has left for his trip. The mongoose has been found dead and is being tested for rabies.
The rest of “Primate” is about what happens when Ben goes on a rampage that leaves Lucy, Erin, Kate, Hannah and Nick trapped in the house. The only place where Ben is afraid to go is in the swimming pool, because animals infected with rabies have a fear of water. Predictably, when the rampage happens, the terror victims run away in a panic and leave their phones in areas that are hard to get to without getting past Ben.
The terror scenes in “Primate” can get over-the-top with how Ben, even in his demented and rabid state, has the presence of mind to do things that you would see a human do to prevent captive people from leaving. In real life, rabies causes animals to become disoriented. The movie doesn’t skimp on the gore because there are multiple scenes of Ben killing people by forcing open a victim’s mouth and ripping out the lower jaw.
“Primate” does a good job of incorporating Adam’s deafness into the movie. (Kotsur, who won an Oscar for his supporting actor performance in 2021’s “CODA,” is deaf in real life.) When Adam is in a scene, the movie switches to his perspective by having silence in the scenes so that hearing viewers experience what Adam is experiencing. The sound design then switches back to audio noises to give to demonstrate what the hearing characters are experiencing.
The cinematography (by Stephen Murphy) in “Primate” is above-average, making good use of the cliffside location, mood lighting throughout the house, and the swimming pool that turns into a prison. Some parts of the movie will be very hard to watch for people who don’t like to see any cruelty involving animals. But if you go into a movie like “Primate” expecting the rabid chimp to be treated like a helpless pet, you probably shouldn’t be watching “Primate” in the first place, unless you want to be very disturbed. The performances in “Primate” are on par with what this movie is: nothing spectacular but delivering exactly what a slasher flick is supposed to deliver.
Paramount Pictures released “Primate” in U.S. cinemas on January 9, 2026.