There's a refreshing lack of subtext and pretension to this week's gory creature feature Primate, a straight-to-the-point riposte to the glum, trauma-heavy horror films we've been enduring of late. Rather than following his genre peers who are busy aiming for the lofty heights of Don't Look Now and Possession, British director Johannes Roberts is happy to give gen Z their very own Shakma, the goofy 1990 schlocker about a baboon driven wild by an experimental drug.
It's a good thing Anaconda isn't meant to be a horror movie, because the few times it tries for such moments, it's not great at it. The first reveal of the titular giant snake feels like an afterthought. The jump scares, while certainly startling in the moment, are pretty well-telegraphed in advance. However, the end result is a movie far less scary than its campy 1997 predecessor, but far funnier - on purpose.