LOS ANGELES, Jan. 6 (UPI) -- Primate, in theaters Friday, delivers what one wants out of an animal attack film. Viewers seeking a killer chimpanzee movie will find one that embraces indiscriminate, graphic carnage.
Lucy (Johnny Sequoyah) is visiting her family in Hawaii. Her father, Adam (Troy Kotsur), is the widower of a linguistic researcher. He and his other daughter, Erin (Gia Hunter) have adopted Ben, the chimpanzee his late wife was teaching sign language.
When Ben is bitten by a mongoose, Adam sends the dead mongoose for testing but does not expect it would test for rabies in Hawaii. While Adam is on a book tour, a rabid Ben stalks the girls and Lucy's friends.
The film begins with a graphic face mauling before flashing back 36 hours to introduce all the characters. Director Johannes Roberts, who co-wrote with Ernest Riera, keeps the promise this opening makes with several graphic kills.
Where other movies, even R-rated horror films, would cut away, Roberts follows Ben's kills to their logical conclusion, no matter how gory the end results.
