Primate Brings Killer Chimp to Life With Classic Practical Effects in Paramount Horror

Can you name your favorite primate horror film? Of course, virus-crazed chimpanzees were responsible for the collapse of British society in 28 Days Later, and Jordan Peele’s greatest film, Nope, made effective use of a chimp’s rampage through a sitcom birthday party as a grounded parallel for its alien menace. However, you’d be hard-pressed to think of any horror film in which our closest relatives (whether chimpanzees or other non-humans of the primate order) are the central menace. Enter Primate, a Fantastic-Fest-premiering horror film that so happens to combine the chimpanzee elements of the two aforementioned films.

A Simian Cujo

Unless you’re currently attending Fantastic Fest, you probably can’t speak in detail about the plot of Primate. Nonetheless, we know that it begins with a pet chimpanzee – in itself an ominous starting point, considering how frequently real-life tales of such exotic pets ultimately culminate in violence and mutilation.

However, Primate flatters this family pet, Ben, with the presumption that it will take more than his species’ wild nature to turn him into a vicious menace. Specifically, Ben stops being so cute and cuddly after he contracts rabies, and the virus’s characteristically aggressive symptoms threaten to transform a pool party into a bloodbath.

Production Breakdown – What We Know

The director of Primate is Johannes Roberts, who already has a substantial, if not quite prestigious, horror pedigree: In the 2000s, he started out directing a number of horror films in his native United Kingdom, with titles including Hellbreeder and Forest of the Damned. In more recent years, he has made the 2016 shark-attack thriller 47 Meters Down (and its sequel), as well as one entry each in the Strangers and Resident Evil franchises.

The actors in Primate include Johnny Sequoyah (Believe) and Jessica Alexander (The Little Mermaid); Sequoyah plays Lucy, a young woman who’s coming home from college to see her family, including her beloved Ben. The tragic chimpanzee obviously constitutes a major character in his own right, but unlike many cinematic apes of the last couple decades, it seems he is not brought to the screen via motion capture. Instead, the filmmakers are depicting him the old-fashioned way: with practical effects.

While the horror genre may not have an established yardstick for the persuasiveness of practically-portrayed killer simians, the use of practical gore effects has a long and proud history in horror movies. In any case, those who don’t attend Fantastic Fest will be able to judge the quality of Primate on January 9th of next year.