Monkey Shines (1988) Review

You know those films that are so bad they're brilliant? Films that offer more enjoyment to make fun of than to take seriously. They are the films that you must take with a grain of salt. Otherwise you should be prepared for an awful experience. Frequently these films tend to be low-budget horror films. Monkey Shines is a film that is no exception. It is most certainly one of the films that the term "awesomely bad" seems to be coined for. Therefore I shall be giving it an earnest and occasionally good review. I know that the film is fairly, for lack of a better phrase, crappy but in this case entertainment value trumps what I know to be a low quality film.

Allan (Jason Beghe) takes care of himself. He eats healthy and jogs several times a day with a backpack full of bricks. His lifestyle and habits make little difference when he is hit by a truck and becomes a paraplegic. Allan loses all will to live until his best friend Geoffrey (John Pankow) gives him a genetically engineered monkey as an assistance animal. The monkey's name is Ella (Boo) and she becomes Allan's best friend while helping him. Eventually Ella's extreme intelligence causes her to develop feelings toward her master while developing feelings of jealousy toward her trainer (Kate McNeil). Ella begins to carry out Allan's subconscious wishes caused by his rage and his desire for revenge.

So much of this film is too ridiculous to be scary. I hope that director George A. Romero knew what he was doing when he decided to write this film. After all he's a man who has made a career out of making zombie films with underlying social commentaries for those smart enough to notice them. I admit I have not read the novel by Michael Stewart on which the film is based. I'm willing to give Romero the benefit of the doubt since this film was re-cut by Orion Pictures, the studio that released the film. The performances for the film are just bloody awful. Boo, the monkey actually outshines all of her human costars. Just as an example Beghe spends nearly the entire film paralyzed from the shoulders down. This means that he retains the ability to move his head and instead of moving as a realistic person he becomes a bobble head. The best example of this is when Allan yells at his overprotective mother, "Mother did you see my hand move or didn't you?!"
I admit the film itself is awful but God help me I liked watching it. If I didn't do you really think I'd give it such a high rating. Oh, what would we do without our guilty pleasures?

★★1/2