In the beginning of Primate, the audience is given a brief explanation: rabies is a disease that affects animals and humans all together. It is incurable after 48 hours of infection.
This horror film takes place on a private island in Hawaii, where we meet the main character, Lucy, who is played by Johnny Sequoyah. Lucy is the daughter of Adam (Tory Kotsur) and sister of Erin (Gia Hunter) and she is returning home to her family after exams with her friends, but she just so happens to have a pet Chimpanzee named Ben. Ben is a social animal and a friendly creature, but this time, something changed in him and he’s becoming violent. What makes him truly terrifying, is that he is very quick-witted when he begins his hunt for humans.
Chimpanzees are considered to be one of the smartest animals in the world, often ranked as such due to their advanced, self-aware cognition. They excel in memory tasks, with some studies showing they outperform humans in rapid memory tests. We can see this as Ben uses his tablet to communicate with the characters.
Understandably, the new friend, Hannah, is scared of Ben because chimpanzees are naturally dangerous animals. But Ben is friendly, gentle, and a social creature.
How Actress Johnny Sequoyah carried the main character, Lucy, is perfect. She and her sister Erin, who is played by Gia Hunter, are the representation of how growing up with a chimpanzee as a pet can easily go wrong, when the chimpanzee is supposed to be in the wild. Humans tend to forget that wild animals are not humans and cannot be tamed. Jessica Alexander’s character, Hannah, however, was the representation of the average person reacting to the Chimpanzee, Ben, at first glance. To me, she was more realistic when Ben became less like a pet and more like a wild animal. Especially when she is not used to Ben like Kate and Nick was.
Siblings Kate and Nick were played by actress and actor Victoria Wyant and Benjamin Cheng. Kate is close with Lucy, assuming that Kate was around Lucy for a long time since they claim to be “best friends forever.” They share a tight bond between each other, even though Lucy ventured outside of the pool to get a phone for help, Kate followed her so Lucy wouldn’t be alone and be at risk of death in the hands of Ben. I respect how Kate supports Lucy and Hannah. I saw her as the glue to the friend group and she was there to aid and support even in the more difficult times.
The way Tory Kotsur played Adam in the film is absolutely stellar work. Troy Kotsur played an excellent role as the deaf father of Lucy and Erin. The role was originally written for a hearing actor, but was modified to be authentic to Kotsur’s deaf identity, focusing on behavioral changes rather than just disability. And I am glad that he changed his role because his character being deaf with a pet chimpanzee made the movie much more terrifying since he couldn’t hear what was happening around him while his daughters are the only ones that can.
We can immediately see how Adam is deaf and is very close with Ben since he had him as a family pet for years. As we can see in the family photos that Ben was in the family before Lucy and Erin were in the picture. Which is a heart warming yet heartbreaking fact about this family’s history with Ben.
This story enlightens humans on what we consider as “family” in our homes. To have such a strong bond with our pets is a beautiful thing, which gives humans and their pets a sense of belonging and trust, but when it comes to wild animals, unfortunately this bond can easily become broken.
After the movie ended, I knew I couldn’t take another horror film more terrifying than Primate. It is a different pace from the usual horrors I’ve watched. Although the graphics are quite extreme and will be visually disturbing to sensitive viewers, it still shows the reality of what an attack from a chimpanzee would’ve been like. Which is one of the reasons why I liked how the director and the production team studied the accuracy of how a chimpanzee would move and behave.
Primate did win #4 place on the Best New Horror Movies of 2026, but it was horrifying enough to prove why it should be on the top of the list.
