Monkey Shines (1988)
Director: George A. Romero
Writers: Michael Stewart (novel), George A. Romero (screenplay)
Stars: Jason Beghe, John Pankow, Kate McNeil
George A. Romero will always and forever be, to many, the
master and originator of zombie horror. Monkey Shines, however, does not fall
under this category. The “odd guy out," if you will. I had not seen
it until last Monday and it was not at all what I was expecting, out of Romero
or in general. This was not necessarily a bad thing. I will keep this review
short and sweet this time around.
Monkey Shines is about a quadriplegic man named Allan, who
becomes paired up with a trained monkey named Ella. What he does not know, is
that Ella was also part of an experiment which allowed her to tap into his
deepest feelings of rage, which she carried out for him.
This film was an interesting one because it reminded me a
bit of Re-Animator and how the bulk of the movie was slow paced and then
just wallops your sensory organs with the last half hour or so. For the most
part, it seemed to me to be a basically-sci-fi, not-really-horror movie. It was
mainly about this cute little monkey who progressed in intelligence through an
experiment. She then started to become slightly naughtier with the storyline,
which all in all was pretty tame. There was not a whole lot of gore or horror
really, which was actually a nice break, although unexpected and in this case, a
little disappointing. My mind wasn’t totally blown by this film, and it didn’t
exactly feel like a Romero film ought to. Yes, it was not meant to be just like
one of his zombie flicks, but it felt a little too disconnected from his
directing style. It is possible though that I’m a bit tainted after
familiarizing myself with a gorier video library. If you are looking for and
expecting something more in the vein of a psychological, science fiction flick,
I would say give it a shot. It’s definitely nothing I will back-shelve, and it
was worth taking a look at what else a familiar film director could do.
- Jasmine Casimir
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