Remember back in 2023 when the “Barbenheimer” craze took over the box office and captured the zeitgeist with one of the wildest pairings of all time with Barbie and Oppenheimer? I know it's not on the same scale or anything like that, but Anaconda (the 2025 version starring Jack Black and Paul Rudd) and Primate both debuting on streaming later this month, and it's becoming my new Barbenheimer.
Though I missed both of these movies when they showed up in theaters a few months ago, these are two creature features I’ve been dying to see. With both coming to streaming the same day, I think I have a double-feature on my hands. An “Anacondate,” if you will. That being said, here’s how I’ll be watching these newish horror movies and making a night out of this wild and hopefully raucous experience…
You Know, Anacondate Has A Some Things In Common With Barbenheimer
I’m going to keep saying “Anacondate” until it’s a thing, but you know, it has a lot in common with the whole Barbenheimer situation, just on a much smaller scale. Instead of two massive pop culture events taking over the public consciousness with some wild box office returns, we’re just talking about new and recent movies streaming for the first time on the same day (on two different streaming services). Hear me out…
Anaconda, which critics called a “hacky” meta reboot of that legendary 1997 action-horror experience of the same name, while violent and frightening, is a much lighter and happier piece of a double-feature also consisting of Primate. This blood-soaked horror spectacle about a crazed ape, which had some of the wildest promos I’ve seen in years, is that harder, more gruesome, and not-so-kid-friendly option. I have a feeling one is going to make me laugh from jokes, while the other is going to make me laugh from disgust.
Now I Just Need To Decide Which To Watch First
Both movies are coming to streaming on Wednesday, March 25, meaning I still have a few days to come up with a plan to watch them. Do I start with Anaconda with my Netflix subscription before using my Paramount+ subscription to check out Primate, or the other way around?
Based on the runtimes of each film – 140 minutes for Anaconda, 89 for Primate – this isn’t going to take nearly as much time as a Barbenheimer double-feature, but it’s going to take a few hours of a Wednesday night. That said, I could watch Jack Black and Paul Rudd run around the jungle with my kids, take a break, and then finish the night with that crazed chimp after they go to bed (I’m not showing them that… yet). However, I could also go it alone, watch Primate first, and then have a less traumatic experience with Anaconda to finish the night.
Will this Anacondate craze take off and become the streaming version of Barbenheimer? I don’t know. What I do know is that I’m going to be watching one wild and crazy double-creature-feature next week!
