Prime 2023 / A frustratingly incomprehensible drama muddled by its horror and thriller elements

For some people, grief isn’t easy when a parent dies, especially if that parent is someone you wish you would never become. Grief can stir up a mix of uncomfortable emotions, like shame, anger, and guilt, and it can be very confusing to explain what’s happening to people who aren’t experiencing the same. There’s plenty of that here in South African drama Prime, with Marius losing his racist father, but the way the film depicts this grief is quite hard to follow because of the way it handles its other genres. The human horror of becoming someone you’ve hated is muddled with the randomly arranged sequences, sluggish pace, and mumbled dialogue, which is a shame, because the ideas and images could have made a better movie.