Moviegoers Aren’t Prepared for 2026’s First Really Bad Horror Villain

This article contains spoilers for “Primate”.

I keep my shares of Johannes Roberts since he led one of the best slashers of the 2010s with “The Strangers: Prey at Night,” and they certainly paid off. The killer, filler-free creature feature “Primate” is an 89-minute throwback in all the best ways. We witness an idyllic vacation in Hawaii for a group of twenty-somethings that comes to a bloody halt as an rabid chimpanzee named Ben (Miguel Torres Umba) unleashes monkey mayhem. It’s one of those films that Exactly what it says on the box, and that’s good. Any horror movie that opens with a heartbreaking face in the first five minutes immediately grabs my attention. But focusing too much on the spectacular gore underplays the way Roberts, along with co-writer Ernest Riera, presents their thrills in a way that makes great use of the besieged cliffside mansion and all the dangers it entails.

“Primate” proves how simplicity can open the door to a whole bunch of creative settings that never make that central location obsolete. Not only is it the first major horror film of 2026but a strong contender for one of the most memorable horror villains of the year, Ben. To Lucy (Johnny Sequoyah), her younger sister Erin (Gia Hunter), and their father Adam (CODA’s Troy Kotsur), he’s a lovable extension of the late family matriarch who taught him linguistics before she passed away. But a rabies-infested mongoose slowly transforms Ben into a truly evil animal killer before our eyes. As he doesn’t know how to swim, the schoolchildren take refuge in the swimming pool. Ben, however, shows them that they can’t hide there forever and has a lot of fun tormenting them one by one.

What makes Ben so disarming is that we expect rage to turn him into a savage beast, like in the prologue to “28 Days Later.” But where things get interesting is that he retains his intellect and doesn’t immediately lunge at the kids when they peek their heads. Ben plays the long game by making them feel like they have a chance. Nick (Benjamin Cheng), Lucy’s crush, at one point tries to push Ben in the hopes that he will tumble down the sheer cliff. But Ben pulls off an incredible trap by throwing Nick away instead. We get an incredible POV shot of his fall which culminates with his head split open like a watermelon on the rocks below. If that wasn’t enough, Ben celebrates his deception with a slow maniacal laugh. To his credit, it is was quite funny.

Johannes Roberts doesn’t completely discount the fate of this ensemble’s efforts to survive the night, but understands that the audience is also there to have fun supporting Ben. He calculates, lures them into traps and also has a very wicked sense of humor. This is best depicted in one of the film’s remarkable sequences where Ben puts Drew (Charlie Mann), a drunken party-goer, to sleep in a false state of security before slowly pinning him to Lucy’s bed, ripping his jaw out and taunting him with it while he is. still alive. He reflects the sadistic joy of Art the Clown from “Terrifier” (David Howard Thornton).

Roberts builds effective suspense as to where Ben might be hiding in any given scene. It works not only because of the character, but also because of the man who plays him.

I spent most of “Primate” wondering how the hell Johannes Roberts and his team brought Ben to life, given that he looks so detailed and textured. CGI has become such an inescapable solution that it never occurred to me that this angry chimpanzee could actually be practical. How stupid of me. Actor/movement specialist Miguel Torres Umba brings Ben to life using an incredibly real animatronic suit created by the artists at Millenium FX. Every time Ben partially scalps someone in the pool using a hanging string of lights or bumps into a closet door, it’s Uma who really does the work. It’s almost always easier for actors, characters, and audiences to accept fear when there is something physically right in front of them.

Even though Ben channels other ruthless animal killers like “Cujo” and Gordy (“No”), Uma’s excellent creature performance imbues the expressive character with her own horror heritage. It’s such a treat that one of the first films of the year comes right out of the box with a screen monster you can’t help but love, especially when he taunts a character with the unlock button on the car keys she left behind. Ben adopts this “look what I’m about to do to this poor bastard” attitude as he reveals a tender moment as a ruse to break Lucy’s wrist. I’ve seen some people describe this movie as stupid, but it has way too much talent for such a simple moniker. It’s incredibly refreshing that “Primate” has no shame in being a creature feature (unlike another recent holiday monster movie). It simply is. Over to you, Ben!

“Primate” is now playing in theaters nationwide.