Johannes Roberts has made a career out of placing young bodies in enclosed spaces and seeing what breaks first. From the submerged panic of 47 Meters Down to the neon-lit attrition of Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City, his cinema is built on pressure systems: ticking clocks, shrinking environments, and protagonists perpetually one bad decision away from catastrophe. Primate continues this fixation almost to the point of self-parody, trapping its cast of college-aged characters in a chlorine-blue nightmare where fear, logic, and common sense all slowly evaporate.

The premise is lean to the point of austerity. Lucy returns home from college to reconnect with her fractured family and their long-time pet chimp, Ben. A pool party goes awry, Ben contracts rabies, and the animal’s sudden shift from domestic novelty to feral threat pushes the film into siege mode. Friends barricade themselves in and around a swimming pool, devising increasingly desperate strategies to outlast a creature that is stronger, faster, and far less forgiving than they are. It’s a setup that screams exploitation, but Roberts approaches it with the clean, functional competence that has become his calling card.

To the film’s credit, Primate is often tense. Roberts understands spatial geography well, and the poolside setting is used with a claustrophobic clarity that keeps the action readable. The director’s knack for escalation — another hallmark of his work — ensures that the chimp’s attacks arrive with bruising force, and the practical effects are commendably gnarly. There are moments where the violence lands hard, not because it’s shocking, but because it feels cruelly inevitable.

Yet inevitability is also Primate’s greatest weakness. This is a paint-by-numbers survival thriller that never strays from its template. Characterisation is skeletal, dialogue often grating, and the decision-making of the besieged teens frequently borders on self-sabotage. Rather than grinding the audience through fear, the film more often grinds their teeth through frustration, as tension gives way to repetition and contrivance.

Roberts’ fascination with teens in peril remains intact, but here it feels rote rather than revealing. Where his better work finds momentum in relentless pacing, Primate stalls, circling the same beats without deepening its stakes or themes. The chimp becomes less a symbol of uncontrollable nature or domestic denial and more a blunt instrument deployed whenever the film needs a jolt.

The Prognosis:

Primate is competent but hollow — a functional creature feature with flashes of brutality and tension, undone by its refusal to evolve beyond familiar rhythms. It’s not without craft, but it’s also not without fatigue. A rabid idea, executed safely, and ultimately remembered less for its bite than for how long it takes to let go.

• Saul Muerte