Blood Monkey

"Blood Monkey" (2007, Robert Young, Thai Occidental Production, RHI Entertainment, Genius Entertainment) is a nature-bites-back adventure horror set in Thailand.

A group of student anthropologists travel to the jungle to assist Professor Conrad Hamilton (F. Murray Abraham) in his quest to capture a creature he believes to be the missing link in human evolution. Only, when the students arrive they discover that the initial research team are no longer there and the Professor and his somewhat sadistic assistant, Chenne (Prapimporn Karnchanda), are less than professional. Can they escape the jungle before the massive, bloodthirsty trophy specimen can brutally murder them all?

I will admit I watched this film for two reasons:

1. It is a B-movie with a pun title
2. I have a crush on Matt Ryan

I stayed for two reasons:

1. Matt Ryan
2. Matt Ryan using his own accent

Ok, a third reason: F. Murray Abraham hamming it up big style! If the scenery hadn't been potentially poisonous, he would have been chomping on it. 

This is a straight-to-DVD syfy movie so it plays out in a very by-the-numbers style: too much dialogue, not enough 'monster'. But it does have some entertaining effects when we finally do see some of our 'monkeys' and there was an abseiling scene which must have been sketchy to film...

It doesn't outstay its welcome at 90 minutes and delivers the anticipated levels of cheese, but it could have been doing with a little bit more monkey for our money. It's definitely a cautionary tale about outlandish uni trips with maniacal professors.

[Image: RHI Entertainment]

Hani

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