As a group of teenagers huddle together in an infinity pool early on in “Primate,” hiding from a deranged chimpanzee waiting at the edge, the camera pans in a big circle. The message is simple: There’s no escape. It’s a moment of clunky suspense, until suddenly, after pausing on the chimp and then continuing that plodding pan, it becomes kind of stupidly funny, almost as if to say: Nothing to see here!
What we have, in other words, is a movie of simple, silly pleasures, maybe knowingly, but not always. You get that sense even earlier, in the opening scene, when said chimp rips the skin clean off a veterinarian’s skull, and we see flesh, blood, bones and all. Reading the barest logline for this film, directed by Johannes Roberts, is about the same as watching it: chimp crazy, chimp kill.
More specifically, Ben, the pet chimp of a family in Hawaii, is bitten by a rabies-infected mongoose and goes on a rampage against his owners and their friends. The movie’s sole focus is on the bone-crunching gore of it all, the more graphic the better. For better or worse, it doesn’t pretend for a second to be more than that. It’s a B-movie with a budget, but surrendering yourself to its cheap thrills with the right crowd can make wincing its own kind of fun.
Primate Rated R for strong bloody violent content, gore, language and some drug use. Running time: 1 hour 29 minutes. In theaters.
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