Forget your typical “man’s best friend” stories. Paramount is about to turn your childhood memories of cute monkeys into a full-blown panic attack. The new horror-thriller Primate just dropped a heart-pounding featurette titled “Silence.”
Directed by Johannes Roberts—the guy who made you afraid to go in the water with 47 Meters Down—this film takes that same “trapped” energy and moves it from the ocean floor to a suburban living room.
The Story: A Homecoming from Hell
The setup is every college student’s dream: heading home for a break to relax with the family. But for our lead (played by Johnny Sequoyah), the welcome committee includes Ben, the family’s pet chimpanzee.
The nightmare starts when Ben contracts rabies. In a matter of hours, the “sweet” pet everyone used to dress up in sweaters transforms into a hyper-violent, viral-crazed engine of destruction. The family finds themselves barricaded inside their own home, playing a deadly game of hide-and-seek with a creature that knows the house just as well as they do.
The Return of Practical Effects
In a world where almost every movie monster is created on a computer, Johannes Roberts made a bold move: he went old-school. He convinced producer Walter Hamada that the only way to make Ben truly scary was to make him real.
“It was sold all the way from the beginning to make a practical movie,” Roberts explained.
Taking inspiration from the 1983 classic Cujo, Roberts teamed up with the legends at Millennium FX. They didn’t want a CGI cartoon; they wanted visceral, physical carnage. They found specialized performers to mimic the explosive, jerky movements of an ape, ensuring that every time Ben is on screen, the audience feels the weight and danger of a physical predator.
The “Chimp” Reality Check
The film doesn’t shy away from the fact that keeping a chimp as a pet is, frankly, insane. Roberts knows the audience is thinking, “Why would you have that thing in your house?” To drive the horror home, the film leans into the terrifying reality of primates. This includes their bite force: 1,300 PSI, which is stronger than a lion’s. These creatures are roughly five times as strong as a human. This means they can rip your arms off and beat you to death with them. There’s a long list of people who have tried to keep them as pets, only to have them turn on them. One woman had her face ripped off…RIPPED OFF!
The real “horror” of the movie isn’t just the rabies—it’s the family’s emotional blindness. The film forces us to watch as they struggle to accept that the “friend” they’ve loved for years is now a monster intent on tearing them apart.
Coming Soon
With a stellar cast including Troy Kotsur (CODA) and Jessica Alexander (The Little Mermaid), Primate is looking to be the first big must-see horror event of 2026.
Primate swings into theaters on January 9. Check out the “Silence” featurette below—and maybe double-check the locks on your way out.
