When I first saw the trailer for Primate (the one that showed audiences watching behind their hands at early screenings), I had a feeling the early arrival on the 2026 movie schedule would be a blood-soaked creature feature. I finally checked it out once Johannes Roberts’ thriller made its streaming debut with a Paramount+ subscription, and while I was ready for the gore in this movie about a family’s pet chimp getting infected with rabies, there was something else that caught me completely off guard.
The Primate ending was gut-wrenching and emotional, and the final few minutes of this movie, which critics called “lean, mean, and chimpanzee-n,” genuinely bummed me out for a few days. Not only is there all the death that leads up to the intense climax, but there’s a lot the surviving characters have to deal with after the credits roll. And I wasn’t prepared for that.
The Pinborough Family Lost So Much
By the time Prime wraps up its brief yet thrilling story, the Pinboroguh family has witnessed more than half a dozen vicious deaths (or the aftermath of these violent kills) at the hands of Ben, a chimpanzee that’s more a member of the family than a pet. Watching someone get thrown from an infinity pool on the side of a cliff or bludgeoned to death with a shovel is one thing, but those pale in comparison to everything the family lost by the time the cops arrived.
Lucy and Erin (played by Johnny Sequoyah and Gia Hunter, respectively) not only lost friends in this nightmare of an evening, but they also lost a member of their family. Ben, who was infected by rabies after being bitten by a mongoose, was like a brother to them. That’s something I wasn’t able to overlook, even after Ben ripped off some guy’s jaw and played with it as he bled out.
On top of that, these two also lost their mom a year earlier, and Ben felt like one of the final and strongest connections they had to her. With Ben gone, they also have to say goodbye to their mom again. I couldn’t stop thinking about this as Ben died, Erin was sent off to the hospital for that nasty bite wound, and Lucy was left wondering what’s next.
I Came For The Gore, Not The Emotional Trauma
Like so many others who saw Primate in theaters or in the comfort of their own homes, I went into the movie to be terrified and take in all that gnarly gore. While that’s very much the case (this feels like the “Gordy” scene from Nope was expanded into 90 minutes), I was not expecting to deal with so much emotional trauma. Don’t take this as a negative, as it adds so much to the movie, just like Troy Kotsur’s performance, and has made me think long and hard about loss and grief.
There’s been a lot of death in my life the past year, and oddly enough, this movie helped me process some of that. Well, when I wasn’t covering my eyes and screaming “oh my god” as someone’s face got ripped off. But all jokes aside, I had to put my dog down about six months ago, and I thought a lot about him and our experiences while watching Ben completely lose it. I’m still processing the death and the emotional trauma I endured before, during, and after the experience. I just didn’t think a horror movie about a rabid monkey would help with that journey.
Movies are funny like that sometimes. You go in expecting to watch people get brutally ripped apart by a chimpanzee, only to find yourself thinking about grief and emotional trauma.
