⭐⭐☆☆☆
I really wanted to like Primate. I’d heard good things going in — not just from friends, but from reviewers whose tastes usually line up with mine, especially when it comes to horror. And while this movie isn’t bad, there was just too much here that didn’t work for me to fully get on its wavelength.
The film centers on Lucy, a young woman who finds herself trapped in a remote setting where a dangerous, unstable presence named Ben begins stalking those around her. As the body count rises, survival becomes less about escape and more about understanding what Ben is capable of and how far things have already spiraled out of control. It’s a simple setup that should work on its own, and at times it does.
The biggest positive for me is Ben himself. I really liked his design and what they did with him as a character. He’s creepy, occasionally darkly funny, and genuinely unsettling. There’s a great shift in how you feel about him over the course of the film — you start out caring about him, and by the end you’re fully ready to see him put down. That arc works. The kills are also pretty solid for the most part, with one in particular standing out as genuinely memorable. I won’t spoil it, but once you see it, you’ll know exactly which one I mean.
I also really enjoyed Johnny Sequoyah as Lucy, who serves as the film’s main protagonist. She does a good job carrying the movie, and Lucy is a character I didn’t mind following. There’s a grounded quality to her performance that helps anchor things when the film starts to get a little messy.
Unfortunately, that messiness comes from the characters — and not in a good way. Nearly everyone in this movie makes some of the dumbest decisions imaginable, and it constantly pulled me out of the experience. One moment that really stuck with me is when the characters have a phone within reach while Ben is freaking out upstairs. Instead of grabbing it and running, they just stand there for a solid ten seconds listening to him come down the stairs, only to hide in a closet at the last possible second. The scene that follows is tense, sure, but it’s tension that didn’t need to exist if the characters behaved like actual people.
There’s another scene where Lucy is walking barefoot through broken glass. Instead of carefully watching where she’s stepping, she predictably steps on a piece of glass, lets out a small scream, and immediately alerts Ben. Again, the moment could have worked, but it felt like the movie forcing stupidity to move the plot forward rather than letting tension build naturally.
Later on, two male characters are introduced mostly to add to the body count, which I’m usually fine with. I like kills. But these characters are so annoying and unrealistic that they once again reminded me I was watching a movie. And that’s my biggest issue here — I don’t want to feel the script working when I’m watching a film. I want to be immersed enough that it feels like a complete experience.
There are also a few inconsistencies that are hard to ignore. The most glaring example is when Ben rips out a huge chunk of a girl’s hair, complete with visible blood — and then it’s never addressed again. No injury, no blood later on, no bald spot, nothing. Moments like that break immersion and make the movie feel sloppier than it needs to be.
I promise I’m not trying to nitpick. I genuinely wanted this one to click for me, and I know I’m in the minority with this rating. But like I always say, I’m a fan first, not a critic — and when characters have to be dumb just to push the story forward, it really annoys me.
Final Rating: ⭐⭐☆☆☆
Primate has some things going for it — especially Ben, a standout kill, and a solid lead performance — but frustrating character decisions and story inconsistencies kept it from ever fully working for me. I wanted to like it more than I did, but I can only go with how it actually landed.
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