When Nature Gets Nasty: Johannes Roberts Unleashes “Primate”
Let me tell you something about primates that most people don’t want to acknowledge: they’re basically us with better upper body strength and zero impulse control. I learned this the hard way as a kid when a spider monkey decided my ponytail looked particularly yankable. The little imp came at me like a furry tornado of rage, and while I escaped with my scalp intact (mostly), I’ve never looked at our evolutionary cousins quite the same way. So when director Johannes Roberts announced he was making Primate, a horror film about a rabid chimp terrorizing a family in Hawaii, my reaction was equal parts “finally!” and “oh god, the flashbacks.”
I first crossed paths with Johannes back in 2016 when he was promoting The Other Side of the Door and 47 Meters Down—two wildly different films that showcased his range from supernatural dread to aquatic terror. Since then, I’ve watched him evolve into one of horror’s most reliable architects of tension, particularly with his contributions to The Strangers franchise, where he proved he could make even a swimming pool feel like a death trap. But Primate, which just dropped last weekend, might be his most visceral work yet.
The film opens with what Johannes calls his “Cujo moment”—a veterinarian arrives to check on Ben, a seemingly docile chimp who’s feeling under the weather. Spoiler alert: Ben’s not just having a bad day; he’s gone full Travis the Chimp (Google it if you want nightmares). It’s an opening that immediately establishes the rules: these aren’t your Jane Goodall documentaries, folks. This is nature with its mask off.
“The idea came about around fifteen years ago,” Johannes tells me, settling into our conversation with the easy confidence of someone who knows they’ve just delivered something special. “Initially it was a dog. I’d seen my mom’s dog running around her swimming pool, and I thought, ‘This could be a really fun spin on Cujo.’ Then it sat in a drawer, came out, developed, and about five years ago, changed to a chimpanzee.”
That transformation from canine to primate was, as Johannes puts it (with zinging accuracy), “the game changer.” And here’s why: dogs might bite you, but chimps? Chimps will systematically dismember you while maintaining eye contact. They’re smart enough to use tools, strong enough to literally tear you apart, and just human enough to make it personal.
The story follows Lucy (Johnny Sequoyah) returning home to Hawaii to visit her family and their unusual pet, Ben, a chimp who belonged to her late mother and communicates through sign language and a special tablet. Her father, played by Academy Award winner Troy Kotsur in what Johannes and I agree is a standout performance, notices Ben’s acting strange and calls in that ill-fated vet before heading out for the evening. What follows is a white-knuckle experience in escalating dread as Ben’s rabies progresses and the family’s beloved pet transforms into something out of Hieronymus Bosch’s more disturbing work.
“I really went back to Cujo and Halloween,” Johannes explains. “In its execution, it’s very much a John Carpenter movie. And in its creation, it’s pretty much a Stephen King kind of thing.” When I mention the sparse history of primate horror—Monkey Shines, Shakma, Link, and that gloriously ridiculous Congo—Johannes laughs. “I have to say, I don’t know if I’m saying sacrilegious things here, but I don’t know that there’s many good chimp or monkey-based movies. Monkey Shines, umm… I love Romero, but I don’t know that’s necessarily his finest movie.”
Fair point. But where those films missed the mark, Primate succeeds by understanding a fundamental truth: chimps are terrifying precisely because they’re so close to human. As Johannes notes, “It’s not a creature feature because he’s so human. He’s so mean and he’s just a shit.” There’s something particularly unnerving about Ben’s transformation—the way the sickness doesn’t just make him violent, but seemingly malicious. The film’s tagline, “dangerously close to human,” cuts both ways.
The practical effects are where Primate really shines. In an era of CGI and AI everything, Johannes went old school, casting Miguel Torres Umba, a five-foot Colombian theater actor with no film experience, as Ben. “He just went full method, full chimpanzee,” Johannes tells me, clearly still impressed. “He bought so much to that role.” The result is a performance that’s both heartbreaking and horrifying because you genuinely care about Ben before he becomes a nightmare, which makes his descent all the more tragic.
“They’re pretty mean characters, to be honest,” Johannes says of chimps, with characteristic understatement. “A lot of mutilation and humiliation rather than just killing. So it’s a very visual thing.” He’s not kidding. Without spoiling the carnage, let’s just say Ben’s approach to problem-solving involves a creativity that would make Jigsaw proud. There’s one kill involving a mouth that… well, you’ll see. Or maybe you won’t, depending on how quick you are with your hands over your eyes.
What elevates Primate beyond simple shock value is its tragic core. The communication barriers—Ben can almost tell them what’s wrong but lacks the language, while Kotsur’s deaf character adds another layer of missed connections—create a sense of inevitable doom that recalls the best of seventies horror. Roberts and co-writer Ernest Riera understand that the scariest monsters are the ones we love.
“I didn’t want it to be a horrible movie to watch,” Johannes insists. “I wanted it to be fun. You should always have a smile on your face. It shouldn’t be grim. It needed to be a blast to watch.”
And it is, in that specific horror way where you’re laughing one second and gasping the next. The film knows exactly what it is: a rollicking, brutal reminder that we’re only a few evolutionary steps and one rabies infection away from our own animal nature.
When I ask about the studio’s reaction to his practical approach, Johannes admits there were “some skeptical eyebrows raised” initially. “The way you do it now is visual effects,” he says. But after showing test footage, Paramount was sold. “A movie like this, to get financed through a studio is the most strange moment of my career. The happiest but strangest.”
After years of development hell (including a stint at Netflix that Johannes diplomatically navigates around), Primate found its way back to its original concept. “It’s funny where your instincts first lie is often the right way to go,” he reflects.
Those instincts have paid off. The film is garnering the exact reactions Johannes hoped for. Fans are finding it shocking, funny, relentless, and “hitting you over the head like a sledgehammer.” After the mixed reception of some recent projects, the director is clearly relishing this win. “I’m well used to a movie landing on the wrong side of what people are hoping for,” he admits. “This is fun.”
Primate taps into something primal; pun absolutely intended. It’s the fear that what separates us from them is thinner than we’d like to believe, and sometimes all it takes is one bad bite to tear down that barrier.
Johannes Roberts has crafted something special here: a creature feature that remembers the “creature” is only half the equation. The real horror is in the recognition, in that moment when you look into Ben’s eyes and see something uncomfortably familiar staring back. Something smart. Something angry. Something that knows exactly where to hurt you most.
Primate is currently terrorizing audiences in theaters, which is exactly where it should be seen. Trust me, you want to experience this with a crowd. Just maybe sit a few rows back from anyone eating popcorn too enthusiastically. You never know what might trigger those repressed primate instincts.
Staci Layne Wilson is still working through her monkey-related trauma one horror film at a time. She promises she’s totally fine around chimps now. Totally. Fine.
