Johannes Roberts’ creature suspense-horror film Primate means serious business.

It’s full-on gore and violence. It gets too brutal it can be hard to watch at certain times. There’s a lot of blood and ripping of flesh (and other body parts) it can make anyone with a weak stomach want to leave the cinema—or, at least, close their eyes for the most part.

The terror is relentless which is mainly why it’s so fun to watch.

There’s definitely no monkey business here.

Primate centers on Ben, a chimpanzee trained to communicate with humans by a linguistics professor, whose family has adopted him. The eldest daughter, Lucy (Johnny Sequoyah), has just returned from college and is looking forward to a fun weekend with sister Erin (Gia Hunter) and three friends: best friend Kate (Victoria Wyant), Hannah (Jessica Alexander), and Nick (Benjamin Cheng).

However, Ben has other plans in mind.

What I appreciate about this movie is that it’s anchored on a very simple premise: chimp goes bananas and starts killing the people it lives with.

And that’s where its beauty lies. It’s unlike most horror movies that need complex storylines to build suspense and hold attention. Primate basically spoils us in its first few seconds by telling us the reason behind Ben’s chaotic behavior. And since it’s already given away a vital information about the plot, there must be something else to keep us glued to the screen.

That confidence comes in the form of violence and gore.

Roberts and the rest of his team have done a masterful job at building suspense by capitalizing on shock and the helplessness of the characters. In many suspense and horror films, the scare factor is often delivered mainly by the ostentatious show of character arcs and plotlines. The build-up to the (killer’s) reveal is usually what keeps viewers hooked.

Here, there’s no longer any secret. No guessing required.

We know exactly who to hide from, why he’s gone apeshit crazy, and what’s at risk if he gets to you.

The fear is primal. It’s all about survival.

And Roberts has taken the viewers on a wild, terrifying, and exhausting ride to the finish. The kill scenes are something. The team didn’t hold back: skin being ripped from the face, body parts being stripped away, or skulls being bludgeoned like pulp. It can be quite revolting but the terror is unquestionably top-tier.

Thanks mostly to the practical effects used to bring Ben to life (Miguel Torres Umba wore a specialized suit). It gave us something tangible to be terrified of. It also helped that we have characters who did not display the typical dumb behavior common in many scary movies.

Case in point: when Ben first displayed signs of hostility and they realized he’s been bitten by something, even without confirmation that it’s rabies they jumped to the pool since they know rabies-infected animals are scared of water. Even the futile attempt to push Ben off the edge of the pool was anchored in logic.

There aren’t any cliched jump scares here as well. Roberts effectively used darkness and sound to keep viewers on the edge. Not being able to see everything clearly on the screen makes it scary especially since you are aware Ben is lurking somewhere and can attack any moment.

Lucy uses sign language to communicate with sister Erin and best friend Kate to avoid alerting Ben, so we have scenes where sound is muted down, which adds to the tension. One scene towards the end of the movie where dad Adam (Troy Kotsur) is inside the house and the sound is turned off (because he’s deaf mute) really made viewers yelp in horror.

It’s one of the best few minutes of the film.

And as for Primate, it’s up there alongside 2019’s Crawl as one of the most exhausting (because it’s so scary) horror movies to watch.

Primate is now showing in cinemas.

Watch the trailer here: