Director Johannes Roberts reveals the watery inspiration behind his killer chimp horror, Primate, and says he’d be “surprised” if we didn’t get a sequel. Although the centrepiece of Primate is a rabid chimp in a crimson T-shirt, January’s hairiest horror film didn’t initially feature a simian at all. Talking to Film Stories, director Johannes Roberts ... Primate | Director Johannes Roberts on killer chimps and the likelihood of a Primate 2
Director Johannes Roberts reveals the watery inspiration behind his killer chimp horror, Primate, and says he’d be “surprised” if we didn’t get a sequel.
Although the centrepiece of Primate is a rabid chimp in a crimson T-shirt, January’s hairiest horror film didn’t initially feature a simian at all.
Talking to Film Stories, director Johannes Roberts explains that Primate began life roughly 15 years ago, and far away from the temperate climes of Hawaii where the film is set.
“My mum, at the time, had a swimming pool,” Roberts tells us. “She lived just outside Cambridge, and she had this really annoying dog called Ludwig that ran around the swimming pool constantly barking.”
As Roberts idly watched the dog, scampering round and round the empty pool, barking at nothing, an idea began to crystalise in his mind. “Suddenly, my Cujo brain went, ‘Oh, what if the swimming pool didn’t have a shallow end? And the dog actually had rabies? And every time you went to the side of the pool, the dog was there and you had to go back to the middle? How long could you keep paddling…?”
That germ of an idea remained in Roberts’ head for several years as he made a succession of other horror movies, including The Other Side Of The Door, 47 Meters Down and Resident Evil: Raccoon City. Similarly, the dog remained in the script as Roberts wrote a series of drafts – until he hit on the idea of exchanging the rabid dog with a chimpanzee.
The finished film sees a group of good-looking young adults gather at an expensive-looking clifftop house in Hawaii, where a pet chimp, bitten by a mongoose, suddenly goes from cuddly friend to crazed killer. It’s a darkly enjoyable thrill ride, with some impressive practical effects (Primate benefits hugely from its antagonist being the classic performer in a suit) and lashings of gnarly gore.
“What I love about this movie is, when you watch it with an audience, how angry people get,” Roberts says. “That’s so much fun. Because he’s such a little shit. The things he’s doing are so deliberately full of malice. You couldn’t have that with a dog or a shark or, you know, a pterodactyl. It’s because he’s so close to a human being, and has that brain planning and being very deliberate on what he’s doing.”
Opening to day (30th January) in UK cinemas, Primate has already been a sizeable hit for a mid-budget movie, and the critical response has been hugely positive. And while a sequel hasn’t been greenlit yet, Roberts says there’s already been talk of a Primate 2.
“We’ll just have to see, but we’ve all spoken about it,” Roberts says. “It really depends on how it’s received internationally, and then the whole streaming world… But honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if we did not at some point see a Primate 2.”
You can see our full interview with Johannes Roberts in the video above. In it, he talks further about Primate’s making – how a Scandi-chic house outside the M25 was turned into a Hawaiian des-res – his love of Brian De Palma and John Carpenter, and why in a world of cool, rockstar filmmakers, he’s the equivalent of Status Quo’s Francis Rossi.
Primate is out in UK cinemas from the 30th January.
