Monkey Shines (1988)

0.25 STARS: Everybody needs a monkey like Ella...too bad the movie sucked though.

More of an off-beat sci-fi-thriller than a horror movie, "Monkey Shines" is about a man named Alan who is involved in a terrible accident and is consequently paralyzed. After seeing how distraught Alan is, his friend, Jeff, decided to give Alan one of his lab monkeys that he was using to test some kind of secret serum he invented.

The monkey, Ella, is very smart and takes a liking to Alan. However, something strange begins to happen and so the title of this movie begins to make some sense. After a while, Alan sees himself getting very angry and then bad things start happening. I wish I had a monkey like Ella. She's the best character in this movie, but that's not saying much.

Coming off his zombie movies and "Creepshow", George A. Romero attempted something a little bit different with "Monkey Shines", but was it effective? The short answer of course is no. About the only thing interesting to "Monkey Shines" is certainly not the story itself but rather the very convincing and effective acting by Ella, the monkey in this story and the best actor as well, although Beghe was adequate in his role. It's really amazing the things that they were able to make this little monkey do. I will give them that much. Ella deserved an oscar compared to the other uninspiring and insipid performances (aside from Beghe) given by the cast in this flick.

However, while the monkey was entertaining at first, that's certainly not enough to make a good movie, much less a good and effective horror movie which "Monkey Shines" clearly is not. While somewhat unique, "Monkey Shines" is very slow to develop, full of unnecessary scenes, and is rather unconvincing, uncompelling and uninteresting throughout the movie. Marketed as a horror movie, "Monkey Shines" is actually more of an offbeat and ineffective attempt at a scifi-thriller movie.

I was surprised by what I perceived to be a very lackluster, uninspiring and completely dysfunctional effort by Romero with "Monkey Shines". Simply put, "Monkey Shines" is long, boring and leaves you feeling rather cheated and disappointed in the end because of the way they went with this movie. I must admit that I had an idea of what this was going to be like going in, but I must admit that I expected more out of this than I actually got.

By the time things start happening, the viewer has already become quite bored with the charm of Ella and her monkey business if you will because the movie is way too long for the amount of action that actually happens in this movie. When things do begin to happen, not much is really shown. The talents of Tom Savini were really wasted in this film. Not sure why they even asked him to help.

Incidentally, I remember this movie being rather unsuccessful at the box office, and so I never watched it until now. I caught it on fearnet and I can certainly see why this movie has been unable to find much of a following, but I honestly cannot see why this movie found its way on to DVD. I guess it just goes to show you how some good movies still have not find their way on to DVD, but there is plenty of assorted DVD trash like "Monkey Shines" to go around.

"Monkey Shines" is a very poor excuse for a horror movie, and I would not recommend it to anyone, unless you just love monkeys of course and even then this movie will leave with the proverbial "bad taste in your mouth". Indeed, this movie basically sucks.

As an interesting comparison, I think one can see a parallel between this movie and "The Hand" from psychological and paranormal perspectives. However, I thought "The Hand" was a much more sinister and interesting look at the darkness of the unconscious mind. December 19, 2007

In the memory of a free festival

My recollection of this flick is hazy. I saw it late night in the London West End as part of the National Film Festival. There was no one on the door so I just sat down without paying. Niavely I assumed film festivals must be free. Good old fashioned British incompetence was the more likely culprit.

After a promising start it became apparent that George had decided to eschew his auteur style in favour of a strange hybrid of Hitchcock homage and Russ Meyer. That may make it sound more colourful than the laughable and undistinguished results. At one point during the interminable proceedings I recognised a borrowed speech from Doctor Logan in 'Day of the Dead' about civilization that seemed extraneous.

Romero is a talented director who is either 'on' or 'off' and when he's off, the results are invariably puzzling. Despite its appearence at the festival, no further Monkey Business was seen at the local multiplexes which was probably a blessing for the old boy. April 25, 2006

Good "Scary" Science Fiction with Human Drama

The story is not only scary but has both science fiction and human drama. I think the good acting helps the film not to appear silly as the idea of laboratory experiments on animals cause human to mentally connect to the experimental animals is silly.

Since murder and violence are part of the film, this is not something you can relax with or feel warm afterwards... I still think as a scary science fiction it is well made in terms of story telling, sound and photography effect, and acting.

I am not personally into scary movies because lots of unhappy people appear in them, but I am okay with this one. December 16, 2005

No Monkey's Uncle

George Romero has a knack for creating suspenseful horror movies using very little in the way of anything. His movies rely on atmosphere with a dash of special effects. In this case, the horror comes from a (not so) innocent little monkey. Well, the monkey is innocent, but the monkey's master is not.

We start the movie off with a little bedroom action, which is really just a teaser to get you into the movie. We see a little bit of skin as we meet Allan Mann (Jason Beghe) and Linda Aikman (Janine Turner). We quickly learn that Allan is very fit, and he is quickly out on his morning jog, when he has a close encounter of the grill kind. Unfortunately, such encounters end badly, and in this one Allan becomes a (nasty) quadriplegic. Of course, going from a fit, macho man to a quadriplegic is sufficiently traumatic that it would upset nearly everyone, and Allan reacts to the situation quite badly. He is helped down the road to rage by the departure of girlfriend Linda.

Luckily for Allan he has a brilliant friend working at Allan's university, Geoffrey Fisher (John Pankow) and his brilliant friend arranges for Melanie Parker (Kate McNeil) to train a Capuchin monkey for Allan to use as a helper. In many other movies we would see touching moments and in the end Allan would develop a cure of some incurable disease, or win a Nobel or Pulitzer Prize. In a George Romero movie, something sinister is going to happen. In this case the sinister is the experiments the Geoffrey has been performing on the normally harmless monkeys, experiments where Geoffrey injects human brain soup into them to try to increase their intelligence. To this point Geoffrey has met with little success, but the pairing of Allan and monkey Ella (played by monkey Boo - seriously) turns out to be fortuitous, or not, depending on which character you are in the movie.

It seems that this time the treatment has formed some sort of empathic bond between Ella and Allan. The bond appears to work both ways. Allan picks up on Ella's primal behavior, and Ella picks up on Allan's feelings of frustration, rage and revenge. The empathy the two feel becomes increasing the feelings each have, and eventually Ella begins to act on Allan's feelings, with murder and mayhem being the result.

This movie has its high points and its low points. The movie is relatively bloodless, so if you are looking for a gore-fest you should probably move on. The tension in the movie builds, but there is little actual surprise, except for the ending. You can even figure out who will die because Romero makes most of the people who die deserving of death. Indeed, one of the low points of this movie is how stereotypical the characters are.

Some of the most annoying stereotypes are main character Allan, who likely was arrogant before he died, but now he has become what he probably previously looked down on. So now he is taking out his frustrations on anyone and everyone. Allan's mother Dorothy (Joyce Van Patten) was genuinely concerned about Allan, but I also thought she was a bit obnoxious (like mother, like son?).

The worst character was probably Geoffrey Fisher. I am not a big fan of scientists as portrayed by most movies because they are unbelievable. Geoffrey was supposed to be a "real" scientist, but his behavior was most unscientific, particularly for someone who was supposed to be on the cutting edge of science. Science is often made the scapegoat for these sorts of movies, when in reality it is some weirdo who thinks he is a scientist, but turns out to be psychotic. You have to admit, turning a poor little monkey into a killer was brilliant. Even more brilliant is how Geoffrey acted like he was surprised that the monkey was a vicious killer.

I vacillated between 3 and 4 stars for this movie. I wanted to give the movie 4 stars because of how well Romero filmed the scenes involving the monkey. However, the stereotypes and overacting tended to push the movie down in my estimation. Also, though I thought the ending had its good points, it also had its weaknesses. Thus, though there are places in this movie that rise to the level of 4 stars, overall this movie comes in at a more solid 3 stars.
June 30, 2005

Deadtime for Bonzo...

For some reason every time I see anything having to do with monkeys I think of that episode of The Simpson's where actor Troy McClure (you may remember me from such films as...) marries Homer's sister-in-law Selma in a sham wedding and then appears in a musical play titled `Stop the Planet of the Apes I want to get off!', singing the following lines...

Troy: [singing] 'I hate every ape I see,
From chimpan-a to chimpan-zee,
No, you'll never make a monkey out of me'

But I digress...Monkey Shines (1988) is a film adapted for the screen and directed by horror maven George A. Romero (Night of the Living Dead, Martin), who, incidentally, has a new `dead' film coming out sometime in 2005 titled Land of the Dead. Starring in Monkey Shines is Jason Beghe, who I first saw on the HBO series `1st and Ten' way back in the mid 80's and has gone on to appear in such films as Maid to Order (1987), and G.I. Jane (1997) before settling into a career of forgettable TV movies. Also appearing is John Pankow (To Live and Die in L.A.), Kate McNeil (The House on Sorority Row), Joyce Van Patten (Bone, The Bad News Bears), Christine Forrest, who just happens to be married to the director, Stephen Root (Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story), Stanley Tucci (The Core, Shall We Dance), and Janine Turner (Cliffhanger).

As the movie begins we see a young couple nekkid in the bed, and we get half a bum shot of Janine Turner which is then ruined (for me at least), by a lengthier bum shot of Beghe (for this we should have had partial breastage shot from Turner...missed opportunities...oh well). Anyway, the man, named Allan, who is quite fit, begins what appears to be his daily morning jog, only to find himself on the losing end of a face to grill meeting with a truck, thus beginning Allan's new life as a quadriplegic. Adjusting to a life of near immobility is certainly difficult (so much so for the once active Allan), and not made better by the departure of his hot girlfriend (wait to you see who she trades up to). Allan's friend Geoffrey Fisher (Pankow), who is also a medical scientist working at the university Allan attended before the accident, sees that his friend is having difficulties, and arranges for one of the Capuchin monkeys from his lab to be trained by Melanie Parker (McNeil), an expert in the field of training helper monkeys for the disabled. Thing is, Geoffrey's experimentation involves trying to increase the brain power of primates (developing the cognitive skills) by injecting them with serum partially comprised of frozen human brain shavings have not met with the level of success he was hoping for, that is until Ella (the monkey) is paired with Allan, and its discovered that the formula may have worked too well causing a mind meld of sorts between primate and human. This connection allows for a number of things, but it also unleashes some very primal instincts in Allan, ones that Ella begins acting on, and soon people begin to die...

I enjoyed this film, despite my thinking it was just a tad too long. If you are expecting loads of gore based on the fact that this is a Romero film, you are going to be disappointed and should probably skip this one. It's listed as a horror/Sci-Fi film, but I think of it more as a semi-intellectual thriller. The main problem I had with the film was I didn't care for the main character in Allan...now it's understandable his initial bitterness in coping with his injury as I would think the loss of usage of nearly all ones limbs would be a real downer, but what I am talking about goes beyond that in his treatment of those around him, especially his nurse and his mother. Okay, the nurse was a slacker and complainer, but his harping on her didn't help...and his mother...she might have been a tad overbearing, but her heart seemed in the right place and her concern genuine. Neither really deserved the verbal abuse they got from Allan. Oh, wait, Allan's abusive nature stemmed from his close relationship with Ella, and the unleashing (perhaps transference) of primal furies...whatever...seemed to me Allan had more of an effect on Ella than she did on him. Ella, after her training, existed only to serve and protect Allan, obeying his every command. And something else I had a little problem with was the scientific credibility of Pankow's character. His methods certainly left something to be desired and I hardly bought off on the notion that he was some sort of acclaimed researcher on the cutting edge of brain/intelligence studies. The lack of scientific `veracity' doesn't break the film, but it could have been a little tighter...and why in the world would he donate his best test subject in such a manner? I know he and Allan were friends, but come on now...here's another question for anyone who has seen the film...why did Geoffrey take two hypodermic needles (when only one was needed) with him prior to the final confrontation? Other than it was a necessity for the plot? Perhaps the 2nd hypo was a backup, but I'd doubt it as Pankow's impulsive and erratic character wasn't they type to think in terms of safeguards and backups...anyway...this was a case for me where the supporting more or less cast carried the film, as I never felt any real connection with Beghe or his character (too jerky for me). He did well enough in the calm moments, but appeared too overwrought during the tense scenes. I think my favorite characters, besides the monkey (who was quite expressive) was played by Forrest (the nurse), Van Patten (Allan's mother), and the arrogant Dr. Wiseman (Tucci). One thing that puzzled me was the subplot with Geoffrey and his boss, Dean Burbage (Root). Was that supposed to go anywhere? Seems to me they could have cut those scenes out and saved about ten minutes or so...the real strength in the film lies in the direction as Romero does really well in setting scenes up and just creating and maintaining a general sense of suspense...the story may have been lacking in some areas, but the flow was generally strong, and the plot moved along, leading up to a dramatic finish.

The picture on this DVD, available in both widescreen (1.85:1) and pan and scan, looks sharp and clear, and suffers no noticeable defects. The Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround audio comes through well enough, but could use a little boost. In terms of special features there really isn't much except for a short `collectable' booklet (what's so collectable about it?) and a theatrical trailer for the film. All in all I'd give this 3 ½ stars...

Cookieman108

By the way, it was stated no monkeys were harmed in the making of this film...it says nothing about budgies, though...and as far as the Simpson's reference I made earlier, I know the film is more akin to the episode where Homer got his own helper monkey named Mojo...
June 21, 2005

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