New Featurette Offers a Nasty New Look at Paramount’s Primal Pet Chimp Horror Movie PRIMATE
Paramount Pictures has released an intense new featurette for Primate, the upcoming animal horror flick from Johannes Roberts (Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City), and it does a much better job of selling the movie than the initial trailer.
Primate takes the familiar “vacation gone wrong” setup and twists it into something far more vicious. The story follows Lucy, played by Johnny Sequoyah, who returns home from college and reconnects with her family and their pet chimpanzee, Ben. Things spiral fast when Ben contracts rabies during a pool party and becomes violently aggressive.
What starts as a laid-back Hawaiian hangout quickly turns into a fight for survival. Lucy and her friends are forced to barricade themselves in the pool area, scrambling to outthink and outlast a dangerously intelligent and enraged animal. The featurette highlights just how claustrophobic and relentless the movie gets once things go south.
The cast also includes Jessica Alexander, Troy Kotsur as Lucy’s father, and supporting performances from Victoria Wyant, Gia Hunter, Benjamin Cheng, Charlie Mann, and Tienne Simon. The screenplay comes from Roberts and Ernest Riera, with production handled by Walter Hamada, John Hodges, and Bradley Pilz.
Primate made the festival rounds earlier this fall, premiering at Fantastic Fest and the Sitges Film Festival, where it quickly earned a reputation as one of the stronger animal-driven horror films.
It’s said to be mean, tense, and refreshingly effective, avoiding the goofy traps that often sink movies in this subgenre. If you’re into survival horror with teeth and claws, this one delivers.
Paramount’s new featurette feels like a confident final push, showcasing the film’s stripped-down intensity and making it clear this isn’t some novelty creature feature. Primate opens nationwide on January 9th, 2026, and based on what’s been shown so far, this is one pet you’ll be glad you don’t have.