Primate, now streaming on Paramount Plus, is a well-crafted killer-chimp B-movie

It’s the kind of premise that could easily be made into D-grade shlock: a pet chimp at a remote home in Hawaii gets rabies and starts ripping humans apart. But Primate, which is streaming now on Paramount Plus following its theatrical run in January, deserves at least a “B” on the shlock-grading scale. It is very much about a rabid pet chimp absolutely destroying many poor victims unlucky enough to stumble across its path. But in the hands of director Johannes Roberts, it’s an unusually tense and satisfying creature feature — one that confirms the filmmaker’s status as one of the best B-picture directors currently working.