Monkey See, Monkey Do

Film: Primate
Format: DVD from Sycamore Public Library on gigantic television.

One of the current trends in horror films is adapting children’s stories to horror. Films like Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey, Pinocchio Unstrung, and Popeye the Slayer Man, while not setting box office records, are becoming more and more common. I say this not because Primate is one of these films, but because it easily could have been. Wait until 1937 to release it, and this could very easily be titled Furious George and fit right in with the rest of them.

This should tell you that Primate is going to be a film about a killer monkey, specifically a killer chimpanzee, and that’s exactly what it is. The elevator pitch of this movie is “What if Cujo was a chimpanzee?” So, we’re going to have an antagonist that is strong, cunning, legitimately smart, and (of course) rabid.

This is the entirety of this film. Lucy (Johnny Sequoyah) returns home to her family in Hawaii for the first time in years. She is accompanied by her friend Kate (Victoria Wyant) as well as by Hannah (Jessica Alexander), who she is less enthused about spending time with. At the airport, they are greeted by Kate’s brother Nick (Benjamin Cheng), who she not-so-secretly has a crush on. At home we meet Lucy’s father, author Adam Pinborough (Troy Kotsur) and her sister Erin (Gia Hunter). We’re also going to be introduced to Ben (Miguel Torres Umba in a practical suit).

What we see in the opening scene that no one else knows about is that Ben has been bitten by a rabid mongoose and is thus rabid himself. When Adam goes on a press tour, leaving the girls at home alone, Ben starts to reveal the effects of the rabid bite. And it all goes downhill from here.

So let’s talk about what happens in this film, because there’s not really a lot to actually talk about. Essentially, Primate is an excuse to show every gory bit of everything that happens. It’s completely gratuitous, the sort of thing that gets gorehounds excited and makes everyone else cover their eyes. When one of the characters gets tossed off a cliff, for instance, do we need to see the impact of that person’s head on the rocks below? We don’t but you’re going to see it anyway. The needless gore is only the beginnings of the problems with Primate, though. When something can be implied, it isn’t. We’ll get faces ripped off, jaws detached, and more.

A much bigger issue, at least for me, is the way that Ben looks on screen. This is very obviously a person in a chimp costume. He looks like a person in a chimp costume, only slightly more believable than the ape costume at the end of Trading Places. Ben looks fake, and it immediately pulls me out of the film. I’m a fan of practical effects whenever possible, but not when they look this cheap.

It’s also dumb. We’re going to get a vet report from the dead mongoose that tells us that Ben has been infected with rabies, and the response is, “There’s no rabies in Hawaii.” Well, clearly there is, but do go on, author Adam, about how much you know about veterinary medicine.

Perhaps the biggest issue, though, is that Primate could have just as easily been a short or part of an anthology. The film clocks in at just under 89 minutes, with about five minutes of credits, and there is not 84 minutes of story here. A lot of this feels like padding to get it to feature-length, and there was no reason for that.

Look, I love a good horror movie and October is all about horror movies, but Primate is nothing but a disappointment. I would love to have more to talk about here, but there genuinely isn’t really anything more. Troy Kotsur is a good actor. The man has won an Oscar, albeit for a movie that I didn’t love, but nonetheless, the man has skills. He makes too few movies in general, and this is what he decides to do? C’mon, Troy; do better.

Why to watch Primate: Man v. Nature films are always interesting.
Why not to watch: Most of what you’re going to notice are the problems.