Naman Shrestha
With Johannes Roberts at the helm, ‘Primate’ is a horror movie that centers on Lucy, who returns to her family home in Hawaii during her summer vacation. Her family consists of her father, Adam, her sister, Erin, and an adopted chimpanzee named Ben. When Adam receives a call from work and leaves the house under Lucy’s responsibility, she decides to make the most of the opportunity and throw a pool party with her friends, Kate, Hannah, and Nick.
While the friends are having a good time at the party, a rabid animal attacks Ben and bites him. As a result, the once-gentle chimpanzee turns violent and bloodthirsty. What was supposed to be a fun tropical vacation takes a dark turn as Lucy and her friends become targets for Ben. While trying to barricade themselves in the pool, they must come up with a plan to outsmart the chimp and get out of the situation alive. Starring Johnny Sequoyah, Jessica Alexander, and Troy Kotsur, the thriller film unfolds primarily inside Lucy’s family house in Hawaii, which becomes a maze of horror and survival.
Primate Filming Locations
The shooting for ‘Primate’ was conducted in England and Portugal, especially in London and Madeira. Principal photography for the gory thriller movie reportedly got underway in mid-September 2024 and wrapped up after nearly two months, in November of the same year. Upon the conclusion of the shooting process, the set designer, Simon Bowles, expressed his gratitude towards his fellow crew members and wrote, “Thank you so much to all my amazing team and all our suppliers.”
London, England
A majority of the pivotal sequences for ‘Primate’ were lensed in London, the capital of England and the United Kingdom. In order to have total control over the location, the makers chose to tape several indoor and outdoor scenes on a constructed set. Thus, the production team set up camp at a few sound stages in one of the film studios located in London, where production designer Simon Bowles created and designed the set of Lucy’s Hawaiian home from scratch.
Talking about Simon’s contribution to the set design, the director Johannes Roberts told The Gate, “He built everything, including Ben’s forest and the cliffs around the house. You need this wonderful sandpit to play in. When the actors are having fun bouncing off of each other, and I’m bouncing off their energy as a filmmaker, the sets and the setting add the extra element to pull everything together. If you have any weak links, then your whole day, whether you’re an actor, technician, or filmmaker, becomes all about having to compensate for what’s missing. With this, it all connects together, and on a film that isn’t a long shoot like this one – which was about five or six weeks – you don’t want to have to keep chasing those things. It’s just rock and roll. It was fun.”
Madeira, Portugal
For taping most of the establishing and exterior shots depicting Hawaii, the filming unit of the horror thriller movie set up camp on the autonomous region of Madeira in Portugal. From what we can tell, the coastal area of Penha de Águia and the Porto Moniz municipality in the island of Madeira feature in a few scenes. The cast and crew were also supposedly spotted shooting important outdoor scenes around Faial Beach, the municipality of São Vicente, and Ponta de São Lourenço in the town of Caniçal.
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