What a deranged way to kick off 2026. Primate, Johannes Roberts’ feverish little rabid chimpanzee slasher, is a gloriously squirmy exercise in pure genre efficiency. Sustaining a bone-deep sense of dread across its tight 90-minute runtime—punctuated by the occasional obligatory laugh to let off steam—Primate is a feral scream of a January horror film that doesn’t waste time papering over its shortcomings. It knows exactly where its strengths lie: in Roberts’ unsavory tendencies, the suffocating tension, and some of the most creatively horrifying gore to hit the screen in recent memory.
