Fantastic Fest 2025: ‘Primate’ is a Slick, Animalistic, Horror Throwback
Primate is the latest film from Johannes Roberts, whose last movie was Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City. As the festival kicked off, Fantastic Fest audiences gathered in a theater with various small cameras on tripods pointing toward the crowd. It was clear that Paramount was preparing to record the reactions of the movie-going audience. Right away, there was a strong sense that we were all in for a ride.
Roberts came out showing a lot of excitement for the new project. He was also very humorous, explaining that he hoped it would serve as an apology for Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City. He further explained that it was a tribute to old school flicks in the vein of Cujo. Well, he certainly accomplished his mission.
Primate is one of the most entertaining openers at Fantastic Fest in recent memory. It feels like a filmmaker trying to recapture their love for movies while proving something to themselves and to the movie-going audience. The experience is wildly entertaining, filled with suspense, excellent camera work, and memorable kills.
What is Primate about?
The film follows Lucy (Johnny Sequoyah), a girl who returns home with a group of friends to her remote house in Hawaii. The story starts sincerely, and she has a distant relationship with her sister, who seems to have spent most of her time bonding with the house chimpanzee named Ben while Lucy was gone. Their father, played by the talented Troy Kotsur from CODA, is deaf and communicates with Ben fluently in American Sign Language.
After noticing a mongoose got into Ben’s cage, they call someone to check the chimpanzee’s health and run tests. Mainly because Ben begins showing strange behavior. Long story short, sweet old Ben has rabies, and when the father goes out of town on business, the ape starts causing chaos for the teenagers vacationing at Lucy’s home. Their only hope to survive is to stay inside a pool where Ben can’t swim. But they need to find a way out of the water, either to reach their phone or the vehicle or to escape the vicious condition that has taken over their beloved pet.
Johannes Roberts orchestrates a master class in tension
Wes Craven is one of my all-time favorite horror filmmakers. As a filmmaker, he had a clever way of designing suspense that never relied solely on gore. Like any good horror director, they understand perfectly that the violence is just the cherry on top of the dreadful sundae. For example, Scream 2 killed one of its most iconic characters in broad daylight while strategically making the audience wonder where the carnage was going to come from moment to moment.
Primate incorporates many signatures from Wes Craven. One of my favorites is the gradual buildup of music that makes one think something big is about to happen, only for the music to decompress as the survivor turns a corner. There’s a beautiful moment in the movie where this is done, as a character enters the home stealthily. As they open the screen door, the tension in the music builds, and once they close the screen door, the music fades back down, denying the audience any sense of warning of what might come. There is also a fun callback to one of the Scream movies, where somebody is trying to survive in a car.
A slick, animalistic throwback
The greatest aspect of Primate is that it feels like an old-school throwback while bringing something fresh. It’s been many years since we have had a creature feature with a tangible threat. There is something beautiful about the motion capture experiences behind movies like Rise of the Planet of the Apes. However, having someone physically present in a costume with animatronics added remains unmatched. For example, no matter how many CGI Yodas Star Wars brings to the table, the puppet from the original trilogy gives the character personality. It’s the same reason why Grogu is so endearing in The Mandalorian.
A lesser filmmaker would have used CGI for the chimpanzee throughout the entire movie. However, having Ben physically present, snarling and growling in the faces of those who aggravate him, makes the movie feel incredibly intense. The creature detail is great, showing lots of expression, with the addition of foamy and salivating ingredients around the mouth to convey the vicious rabies. It also lends the character a little sympathy, as he can no longer be himself, and this is evident in various aspects of the performance.
If there were any nits to pick, it would be the lack of balance between the monster that Ben becomes and the sincere, loving animal fighting beneath the surface. The movie, overall, might have benefited from a little more emphasis on showing the creature’s attempts to fight back underneath it. At the very least, it probably could have deterred any possible blowback from the primate-loving community. The movie doesn’t seem like it’s intending to make people afraid of these animals. At the same time, it might make viewers genuinely scared of them.
Still, Primate is a gory crowd-pleaser with lots of memorable suspense and tension to drive audiences wild. The crowd at Fantastic Fest 2025 was laughing and screaming and eating every moment of the experience up. It’s impressive to see Paramount make a confident move like this one, allowing audiences to see the film well before its January release. But the confidence is absolutely earned. It is a slick horror throwback worth checking out.
Also check out: Fantastic Fest 2025: 7 Highly Anticipated Films to Watch
