The Verdict
Johannes Roberts, the man behind 47 Meters Down, directs and co-writes a natural-horror picture where an adopted family chimpanzee named Ben contracts rabies and goes on a violent rampage. It's exactly as lurid as that sounds, and it premiered at Fantastic Fest in September 2025 before Paramount put it in theaters, which tells you the festival crowd smelled blood and liked it.
The motion-capture chimp performance by Miguel Torres Umba is the real engine here, a creature that has to be cute enough to live in a family home and terrifying enough to dismantle it. The cast, Johnny Sequoyah, Jessica Alexander, and Oscar winner Troy Kotsur, give Roberts a sturdier ensemble than this genre usually bothers with, and it shows in a 58 Metacritic landing on mixed-to-positive.
Here's the genuinely good news: it grossed around $41 million worldwide on a premise that could have been a straight-to-streaming punchline, and instead it's a competent, committed creature feature. Roberts knows confined-space tension from his shark days, and he reuses that muscle well. Nobody's calling it art, but nobody's asking for their money back either.
What it nails
- ▲The motion-capture chimpanzee performance by Miguel Torres Umba sells both the family-pet warmth and the rabid menace, which is the entire load-bearing wall of the film.
- ▲Johannes Roberts brings his 47 Meters Down instinct for confined-space dread, turning a house into a survival arena with real spatial tension.
- ▲A genuinely solid cast for the genre, with Oscar winner Troy Kotsur lending credibility most natural-horror films can only dream of.
- ▲Premiering at Fantastic Fest in September 2025 earned it festival goodwill, and the mixed-to-positive 58 Metacritic plus $41 million worldwide is a clean win for a creature feature.
What it botches
- ▼The premise, family chimp gets rabies and rampages, is one elevator pitch away from self-parody, and not every scene fully escapes the gravity of that silliness.
- ▼A 58 Metacritic means critics were split, so for every viewer it grips, there's one who found it more lurid than scary.
- ▼Natural horror lives and dies on the creature, and leaning everything on a single motion-capture chimp is a high-risk bet that doesn't always cover the human-drama gaps.
- ▼Roberts has run the confined-space-survival playbook before, so the structure can feel familiar to anyone who's seen his shark films.
Who it's for
Creature-feature fans who want a committed, nasty natural-horror ride, and anyone who'll happily watch a master of confined-space tension turn a family home into a trap.
Who should skip
Viewers who'll find 'rabid pet chimpanzee' too ridiculous to take seriously, and those wanting prestige horror with thematic depth rather than survival thrills.
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