Monkey Shines

"Monkey Shines" aka "Monkey Shines: An Experiment in Fear" (1988, George A. Romero, Orion Pictures) is a film about a killer Capuchin monkey and one man's life changing.


Allan (Jason Beghe) is an active man with a seemingly idyllic lifestyle. Alas, things change for Allan when he is involved in an accident, rendering him quadriplegic. With his life forever altered, his girlfriend leaving him for his Neurosurgeon, John Wiseman (Stanley Tucci), and his meddling mother (Joyce Van Patten) and rough nurse (Christine Forrest) on the scene controlling his every move, Allan is beginning to feel that death would be a simpler solution.


In a morally questionable attempt to help out his buddy and also protect his human brain tissue/monkey injection research from his sneaky boss, Geoffrey (John Pankow), a scientist friend of Allan's, decides to have his best monkey specimen, Six (Boo) trained by Melanie (Kate McNeill); a specialist in quadriplegia and a trainer of helper monkeys for the disabled. Melanie renames Six Ella and trains her up.


Soon Allan is finding a new lease on life again with both his helpful little monkey pal and with Melanie. Unbeknownst to them both, however, Geoffrey is still injecting Ella with his serum in an attempt to increase her intellect to human levels. As time progresses and Allan's bond with Ella increases, it becomes apparent that things are getting creepy. Especially when things and people that upset Allan suddenly wind up dead at very small, somewhat hairy hands...


A fun but clunky piece that does not feel like any other Romero movie. However, being his first studio film, this may be the main reason why and the odd outcome seemed to disenchant Romero with studio films completely as he soon returned to independent films which gave him more creative freedom. The monkey is adorable, there's one or two jumps and the film approaches themes of romance with a disabled character with a fair amount of class and a fairly x-rated scene. Overall it is a  fairly enjoyable film, however, it suffers from pacing, a lot of studio changes that make it feel unstructured and a decidedly odd feeling ending.

[Image: Orion Pictures]

Hani



Day of the Dead

"Day of the Dead" (1985, George A. Romero, Dead Films Inc., Laurel Entertainment Inc., Laurel-Day Inc., United Film Distribution Company) is the third in Romero's series of "...of the Dead" films.

After "Dawn of the Dead" (1978) the world has become overrun by zombies, and now, hiding in caves and fortresses, the remaining living civilians and army personnel are dwelling, hoping to find a cure or more survivors.

This film explores the slow decay of one such micro-society and the turning of the humans against one another at this inhuman hour.

Also, a scientist, known unaffectionately as "Dr. Frankenstein" (Richard Liberty), who had gone decidedly mad, trains a zombie called Bub (Sherman Howard) to listen to music, communicate and shoot a gun. Definitely not the best idea I've ever heard...

All in all, it is, in my view, the weakest and most poignant of the films with a lot to say about humanity and where we are headed (zombie apocalypse or not), but it's certainly a good film with lots going on, excellent acting and some excellent gore. There are comparatively few scare scenes with the zombies creeping up on the characters until the end, but between the zombie-infested-cave-adventure and the fantastic Bub-fights-back scenes, it's well worth the wait.

[Image: Laurel-Day Inc. & Dead Films Inc.]

 

Hani

Night of the Living Dead (2006)

"Night of the Living Dead" aka "Night of the Living Dead 3D" (2006, Lux Digital Pictures, Jeff Broadstreet) is a remake of the George A. Romero classic (I say 'a' as there is more than one). Oh, and it's '3D'... which should tell you all you need to know, really...

Pretty terrible. Except for Sid Haig giving his usual kind, calm & considerately evil psycho performance as Gerald Tovar Jr.

A little too much of the crappy, low budget, cartoon-like 3D effects spoil a perfectly generic low budget snorefest. (this is the highest praise I can bestow, I'm afraid)

They do go quite a ways to explain the events leading up to the zombie outbreak, which the original never completely endeavoured to do, and Barbara's backstory is much more filled out than the original, also.

As well as hokey effects, the film does suffer from a couple of other things, dull plot and too much inclusion of the original film throughout, which is a far superior effort. Surely if the characters had all just watched it, they'd know what was going on?

Boring dialogue and too much stilted cheesiness that just seemed like it was trying too hard, I am afraid I'm not a fan of this film.

I do have to hand it to them they went quite out of their way in setting the scene so that mobile phones and landlines weren't available to call for police assistance, though.

The only good thing about this film is Sid Haig and the legless zombie in the garden.

[Image: Lux Digital Pictures]

 

Hani

 

The Crazies (1973)

"The Crazies" (1973, George A. Romero, Cambist Films) is the original 70s version which was then remade in 2010. My review of the 2010 version can be found here: http://horrorev.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/crazies.html

Both versions are the well-known 'infection-spread-Zombie-movie' in essence... if not technically 'zombie' movies in reality; there be no shambling corpses in "The Crazies".

The remake was good, and managed to keep the main story the same without taking anything away, simply just updating the original.

The original seems quite dated to today's audience, but it is a Romero film through and through with a good yet simple plot and some creepy costumes (mainly gas masked military men). However, often the characters are a bit dull and the script isn't the most interesting.

When a plane carrying a chemical weapon which turns people into violent, homicidal killers, crashes into the reservoir of a small town in America practically infecting the whole population, the military move in to contain the situation.

We follow a small group of survivors led by fireman David (Will McMillan), his pregnant nurse wife, Judy (Lane Caroll), and David's firefighting buddy, Clank (Harold Wayne Jones). They wind up picking up a few stragglers such as a father, Artie (Richard Liberty) and his virgin (remember that bit, it's important) teenage daughter, Kathy (Lynn Lowry) - who totally reminds me of the female gelfling muppet in The Dark Crystal!!!! Anyone else? No? Just me, then...

There's also a few other survivors, but their characters are barely worth mentioning.

David, Judy, Clank and the gang are trying desperately to escape the town, and avoid the armed forces who have been instructed to capture or kill civilians on sight. As they try to make their way through the panic, they also have to avoid the hordes of crazy infected people who are trying to kill everyone! Peasy. Oh, and also, any one of the 'survivors' could be infected, too!

In conjunction with this story, we also follow the military leaders as they try to both stop the infected people escaping and going on the rampage, and also try to find a cure. It's just a shame that in true horror film style, they're pretty much incapable of doing either effectively.

As I mentioned, the script isn't much to get excited about, and other than a few jumpy scenes and some effective but simplistic effects, you can guess what's coming for most of the film. But, as an idea the plot is unsettling. As someone who considers insanity as one of my top 5 fears, I have to hand it to Romero that this film really hits the button. Unfortunately, the lack of budget affects the execution and overall feel of this film and allows it to suffer. I also think more time was spent bigging up the military as the main obstacle, rather than the infected nutters...

Definitely watch this version before the remake, though, to fully appreciate the story!

There's a scene in this film which is far more shocking than anything in the remake! Quite disturbing.
 
Not a great Romero film by any means, but not the worst horror from the 70s by far!

[Picture: Cambist Films]

Hani

Creepshow

"Creepshow" (1982, George. A. Romero, Warner Bros.) is the first and best of the "Creepshow" movies. It was directed by Romero, written by Stephen King, starred Leslie Nielsen and Ted Danson (amongst others)!

The film is based around a comic book called "Creepshow" and is lead (but not strictly speaking narrated) by The Creep, who is the fun but bad influence on young Billy.

There are 5 short stories of much better quality than those seen in "Creepshow 3"; "Father's Day", "The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill", "Something to Tide You Over", "The Crate" and "They're Creeping Up on You".

"Father's Day" is an odd one, but nicely disturbing with a good ending. I just really didn't understand 1) why daddy dearest was so desperate for cake; I've never given my dad a Father's Day cake! and 2) why he waits so long to exact his revenge for his murder... unless there's more in a bottle of Jim Beam than I imagined! But it's enjoyable. And also, keep an eye out for the murder weapon throughout the other tales!

"The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill" stars Stephen King himself. Jordy is a bit of a simpleton. Jordy finds a meteorite on his farm. Jordy imagines the lavish riches such a thing would bring him. Jordy accidentally breaks open the meterorite and he and all his home (and later other areas) becomes infected with some kind of alien plant. Jordy doesn't make it to morning. Very slapstick, very funny!

"Something to Tide you Over" is actually scary! But it's not the 'monsters' that give me the creeps in this short; it's Leslie Nielsen's jealous-husband character. He ruthlessly, imaginatively and slowly kills his wife (Gaylen Ross) and her lover (Ted Danson), but doesn't expect them to return for revenge - obviously they do! The idea behind this short is scary because theoretically, this could be done by anyone. Nielsen clearly thrills in his insane display and the couple's deaths are slow, tense and scary. Although, with all Nielsen's filming equipment around, I was waiting for someone to get electrocuted!

"The Crate" is fabulous. A Professor (Fritz Weaver) at an American college opens a chained, nailed-shut and bolted crate with the janitor (Don Keefer), who had found the object under the college stair case, locked behind a metal grill. Now, it could just be me, but if I found a box which was so locked up, I'd probably get a few more people around when breaking into it (note that I didn't for one minute think that I'd be smart enough to leave it alone!)
Anyway, what's in the crate is like a cross between one of the creatures from "Critters" and a carnivorous baboon. There's death and mayhem (my one complaint being that they appeared to be using water in place of fake blood and thought by shining a red light on it, it would look convincing....it didn't), followed by yet more death and mayhem. Really the 'Crittoon' (as I've dubbed him) just seems to want to be left alone!

The Professor turns to a friend (Hal Holbrook), well he makes some panicky noises at a friend..., who sees this creature as an opportunity to get rid of his overbearing, bitchy wife (Adrienne Barbeau). Holbrook's character convinces his drunken wife to go under the stairs and voila! No more wife! Simple, right? Well... then he has to get rid of the evidence...

Now the final tale, "They're Creeping Up on You", is about cockroaches. It's disgusting and makes you itch. I'm impressed that E.G. Marshall, who stars in this short as the horrid businessman, was happy to film with so many horrible little things! Although to me they were horrible HUGE things (we do not get bugs that big in Scotland)! *shudders*.
His character is cruel and deserves his gruesome end. Very disturbing!

All in all, a great anthology of horror and 3, 2, 1 is a good order to watch this set of movies in; end on a good note!

[Picture: Warner Bros.]

Hani