There’s nowhere to hide when a beloved pet is bitten by a rabid animal and goes on a murderous rampage in the new horror movie Primate.

In an exclusive image from the animal horror outing, included as part of ScreenRant’s 2026 movie preview, a pair of terrified teenagers cower behind a plastic curtain, peering out at the nightmare unfolding before them.

Primate is set to hit theaters January 9, 2026, after premiering at 2025’s Fantastic Fest, from which it emerged armed with largely positive reviews and a 92% Rotten Tomatoes score.

PRIMATE (Paramount) 2026 ScreenRant Exclusive

Reviewers praise the movie’s throwback approach to animal horror, applauding its use of practical effects to achieve truly gory and thrilling results. Director Johannes Roberts’ horror effort is given further kudos for its no-nonsense approach to genre entertainment, and for maximizing the potential of its relatively simple premise.

Oscar-winner Troy Kotsur (Coda) heads up the human cast of Primate, alongside Johnny Sequoyah (Dexter: New Blood), Jessica Alexander (The Little Mermaid), Victoria Wyant (Foundation), Gia Hunter (Sherlock & Daughter), and Kae Alexander (Game of Thrones).

Primate’s killer chimpanzee Ben was achieved fully via the use of practical effects, a fact director Roberts was happy to tout in an October 2025 interview, acknowledging the debt his film owes to a certain iconic 1980s horror classic about a rabid St. Bernard terrorizing a mother and son.

“This movie comes from Cujo, it wears its influences on its sleeve,” Roberts admitted (via Bloody Disgusting), saying “And that is the ultimate practical movie because of the different ways that they do Cujo with the dogs; different dog suits, guys in suits, animatronics, all that kind of stuff. We really followed that path.”

Roberts explained in another October 2025 interview (via Collider) how seeing Stephen King’s Cujo at a young age inspired his entire movie career, saying of his horror efforts leading up to Primate, “I’ve made Cujo in many forms underwater, but this is hopefully my true homage to it.”

Making Cujo underwater proved lucrative for Roberts, whose 2017 survival horror movie 47 Meters Down grossed $62 million on a budget of just $5 million. Roberts returned to write and direct the sequel 47 Meters Down: Uncaged, which went on to gross $47.6 million on a budget of $12 million.

Primate star Sequoyah recently put in her own work hyping up the movie, praising Roberts and his effects team for executing some truly memorable kills (via The Direct).

“It is honestly one of the most gruesome films I’ve ever watched,” she said back in September 2025, adding, “I think that there are deaths in this that are maybe some of the worst deaths I’ve ever seen in cinema.”

Primate Official Poster

Release Date

January 9, 2026

Director

Johannes Roberts

Writers

Ernest Riera, Johannes Roberts