Forget Cujo, 'Primate' Is Unleashing Rabid Chimp Chaos And Rewriting The Horror Rulebook On The Fly
AI Gaming News Author · Polygon ·
Johannes Roberts' upcoming horror film 'Primate' is making waves, channeling 'Cujo' with a rabid chimp and featuring incredible dedication from its cast (including Oscar-winner Troy Kotsur) and a director who dramatically rewrote the script just a week before filming to maximize player — I mean, viewer — terror. It sounds like a bloody good time for horror enthusiasts.
Right then, gather 'round, mates, because I've been tinkering with some news from beyond the gaming world that's wilder than a glitch in the Matrix during a full moon. It involves a rabid chimpanzee, Oscar winners, and a director who decided to scrap his script a week before shooting. Fair dinkum, this isn't your average cinematic PR fluff; it's got the kind of chaotic energy we love to see when a dev team truly goes off-script to make something genuinely memorable.
We're talking about 'Primate', an upcoming animal-attack horror flick that just had its first public screening at Austin’s Fantastic Fest 2025. And by all accounts – and this juicy tidbit comes courtesy of a report from Polygon, delving into the Fantastic Fest premiere – it absolutely tore the house down. Imagine a film so perfectly suited to a festival dedicated to horror and extreme cinema that it opened the whole bloody thing. That’s 'Primate' for you, apparently. It’s described as self-aware, a bit campy (which, let’s be honest, is peak horror vibe sometimes), but startlingly gory. Sounds like my kind of co-op session, just with more screaming and less respawning.
The director at the helm is Johannes Roberts, a name you might recognise from '47 Meters Down' or, perhaps more relevant to our crowd, 'Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City'. Now, Roberts is a chap who clearly isn't afraid of pushing boundaries, and 'Primate' seems to be his latest quest to see just how much visceral terror he can inflict upon an audience. The core premise? Lucy, played by Johnny Sequoyah, heads back to her Hawaiian family home. There, she finds her Deaf father (none other than Oscar-winner Troy Kotsur of 'CODA' fame) and younger sister living with a pet chimpanzee named Ben. You can probably guess where this is going, can’t you, mate? Ben contracts rabies. Ben goes absolutely bananas. Lucy and her mates are then locked into a brutal survival game, dodging Ben’s increasingly violent and mutilated attacks. Basically, a boss fight you absolutely *don't* want to lose.
Now, Roberts is delightfully candid about the film’s major inspiration: Stephen King’s 1981 novel (and 1983 film) 'Cujo'. Yes, that 'Cujo' – the one about the rabid Saint Bernard. But instead of a dog, Roberts gives us a chimp. And his reasoning? "Dogs are one thing, but chimpanzees? I just think they're scary. […] Dogs are one thing, but chimpanzees are little f***ing shits." Right, well, I can’t argue with that. A dog, you feel for. A chimp, with their unnerving strength and unpredictable nature? That’s a whole different kind of fear. It's like switching from a predictable enemy AI to one that's constantly learning and adapting. The absolute horror, mate!
One particularly clever bit of level design in 'Primate' involves a swimming pool. Lucy and her friends take refuge in the water, knowing Ben can’t swim and is hydrophobic. A brilliant, albeit temporary, safe zone in a world gone mad. Roberts also shared that the chimp effects are mostly practical, which is music to my ears. Ben is played by an actor, Miguel Torres Umba, with prosthetics and puppetry. "We did build all these animatronics, sculpts and stuff — there's like a million different things we used there," Roberts explained. He was aiming for a chimp with a real personality, almost like a "Freddy Krueger" of the animal kingdom. Imagine that – a meticulously crafted, practically-effected horror icon, but it's a chimpanzee. My curiosity levels just went through the roof!
Perhaps one of the most intriguing insights came from Troy Kotsur, speaking through a translator, about his approach to acting in horror versus drama. He reckons that with drama, you prepare deeply for the feeling, but with horror, it's better to *not* know what's coming, allowing for an authentic, raw reaction. This led to a brilliant decision on set: Kotsur asked Roberts to conceal a particularly grotesque prop from him. His character, being Deaf, enters a dangerous situation unaware of Lucy's screams, only realising the horror when he discovers one of Ben’s horrifically mutilated victims. Kotsur wanted his reaction to be genuine. "I'd prefer to be surprised. I want the camera to shoot my raw reaction." And when they yelled 'Action!', they brought out the body. "It really freaked me out. So what you see on screen was my actual first reaction." That’s some serious dedication to immersion, isn't it? Like a player refusing to look up a walkthrough, wanting the true, unspoiled experience. He also had a cracking story about a waiter screaming at him because he still had fake blood on his hands after filming – brilliant!
But here’s where Roberts truly leans into the chaotic-good side of game development: the script. You know how in horror films, you often have a pretty good idea who’s going to survive and who’s going to be primate chow? Well, in the original script for 'Primate', audiences would have been right. But Roberts, along with producers Walter Hamada and John Hodges, decided to rewrite everything *a week before filming*. A week! "This f***er shouldn't live," Roberts apparently thought about a character trying a risky counter-attack. The audience needed to know there wasn’t an easy way out. "So a week before filming, we just rewrote the entire script and killed [that character]. I love it." That’s the kind of last-minute narrative twist that keeps a player on their toes, completely upending any meta-knowledge they thought they had. It reminds me of those indie game devs who just decide to flip the whole bloody narrative on its head because it serves the story better. One particular death, Roberts admitted, felt "horrible" to shoot, almost like a "snuff movie." Heavy stuff, but it highlights the commitment to making a truly unsettling experience.
Ultimately, what Roberts loves is that the team wanted to make a movie that 'plays like this.' And 'play' is the operative word, isn't it? From the 'Cujo' inspiration turned up to 11, to the practical effects building a terrifying new 'character', to the meta-level acting choices and the utterly mad last-minute script rewrites, 'Primate' sounds like a high-stakes, unhinged experience. It’s set to hit cinemas on January 6, 2026. Keep your eyes peeled and maybe, just maybe, avoid any unusually quiet chimps in the meantime. You've been warned, mate.
Tags: HorrorFilm, PracticalEffects, GameDevMentality, FantasticFest, Storytelling
Original article: Polygon