I’ve been seeing trailers for Johannes Roberts’ new animal horror film, “Primate,” for what feels like forever at this point. During the NFL Wild Card games, the Golden Globes, and between Instagram scrolls, I felt like every ad I saw featured Ben, the rabies-infected chimp at the center of the film.
The problem with the ubiquity of Ben’s presence is that many people, myself included, thought the movie looked terrible. It’s a very silly premise that the trailers seemed to be selling as a serious horror movie: a group of teenagers spends a weekend in a secluded beach house and is terrorized by the family’s intelligent chimpanzee.
I was pleasantly surprised to find “Primate” is much more of a B-movie gore fest than a horror story about the tragedy of an animal family member going feral. The limited emotional stakes that are present in the movie are set up very quickly within the first 15 minutes, and then it’s all monkey business, and to be honest, that is why you buy the ticket.
The best horror movies get under your skin and convey something true about the human condition through macabre atmosphere and grisly imagery, but the best B-horror movies provide simplistic thrills.
You won’t learn anything about the dangers of domesticating the natural world in “Primate,” that’s a job for “Jurassic Park.” You will, however, see a man in an elaborate monkey suit humorously stalk a gaggle of frankly unintelligent teenagers and kill them in increasingly violent and elaborate ways. It’s a blast!
The devotion to practical effects, like having an actor portray Ben the monkey, pays off in spades, as every time the camera presents a close-up of the animal, there’s an unsettling quality to his lifelike eyes and textured features.
Some of the camera work turns scenes that could come off as stupid and silly into thrilling ones. An image of Ben through a refracted glass door has stuck in my head since leaving the theater. With anonymous actors you’ve never heard of delivering pretty bad performances, the filmmaking has to step up to make any of the scare sequences actually suspenseful, and thankfully, I felt like it did.
“Primate” could get by on being watchable gory schlock, only notable for its gnarly kill sequences, but I thought Roberts’ filmmaking elevated just slightly above trash. Trashy, sure, but not trash. This is something I miss about seeing movies: the mediocre. January is renowned for being a dumping ground for studios to ditch some real stinkers in hopes the quiet month will drive people to the theater regardless of quality. But I usually enjoy these trashy throwaways.
Too often, I walk out of a movie thinking it was an exhilarating masterpiece I will think about forever — see my three separate reviews of “One Battle After Another,” apologies to my fellow editors — or empty garbage I’ll never think about again. I don’t think I’m alone in that feeling either, as most film criticism I read falls into dichotomous categories.
Trashy films can fill this void; they can provide us with a few hours of joy and entertainment before we go back to our parents’ house to write a review.
Will I remember any of the characters’ names in “Primate” a week from now? Absolutely not. Will I remember an extended kill sequence that made a group of people sitting behind me clap and send the entire theater into raucous laughter? Totally.
“Primate” is like empty calories, and seeing it was a reminder to me of the joy of seeing silly-looking, trashy films in theaters surrounded by strangers. Well-made schlock is more valuable than ever in this cinema landscape.