Adam Pinborough (Troy Kotsur) is a widowed author, whose late wife, a linguistics professor, taught their pet chimpanzee, Ben, to communicate. His daughter, Lucy (Johnny Sequoyah) travels back to her remote and luxurious Hawaii home to visit her Dad and younger sister, Erin (Gia Hunter). She brings her best friend, Kate (Victoria Wyant), family friend Nick (Benjamin Cheng) and Kate’s friend Hannah (Jessica Alexander). When Adam goes away on business, the group hang out at the house, unaware that Ben has been bitten by a rabid mongoose and is primed to go beserk.
In some way, this is a typical teens in peril movie. But instead of a crazed masked killer picking them off, we have an unhinged ape. As usual, a number of them are annoying enough for me to hope they are mutilated and director Johannes Roberts, who cowrote the screenplay with Ernest Riera does not disappoint with some delightfully gruesome kills.
I cannot claim to find Primate scary as such, but there are some well staged jumpy moments and when the gang is whittled down to the likeable people, nail biting tension ensues. The other really enjoyable aspect is Adrian Johnston’s synth score that pays a huge debt to John Carpenter.
Clocking in at less than 90 minutes, Primate is terrific entertainment.
Rating: 7.5 out of 10