Monkey Shines: An Experiment in Fear **** (1988, Jason Beghe, John Pankow, Kate McNeil) – Classic Movie Review 2751

Writer-director George A Romero’s edge-of-seat, uber-gripping 1988 thriller boasts plenty of high anxiety, tension and chills throughout.

Jason Beghe stars as Allan Mann, an athlete, cut down in his prime by a road accident and bedridden at home with no movement from the jaw down. As a quadriplegic, he loses all hope for living.

His scientist buddy Geoffrey Fisher (John Pankow) has been injecting hormones into monkeys to make them smart, and he offers one called Ella to Melanie Parker (Kate McNeil) to be trained as Allan’s helpmate. And so Ella is trained to fetch and carry for Allan around the house, obeying him in all things.

But of course the monkey turns out to be too smart for everybody. Ella is part of experiment, and she starts responding to Allan’s rage and frustration, giving her the ability to carry our her master’s darkest wishes. As she begins to develop feelings, she turns her rage against her new master.

Horror expert Romero directs an excellent, high-quality suspense ride with several taut sequences. And, though in one sense it can be called a slasher flick, there is actually no overt horror in a film that really delivers. Romero’s neat and nifty screenplay is based on a novel by Michael Stewart.

Also in the cast are Joyce Van Patten, Christine Forrest, Stanley Tucci, Stephen Root, Janine Turner and William Newman.

It is Romero’s first studio film, but Orion Pictures re-cut the film against his wishes (running time 113 minutes and 105 minutes cut) which contributed to its box office failure (it cost $7,000,000 and grossed $5,000,000 in the US). Romero returned to independent film-making until Orion’s The Dark Half (1993).

Filming location: Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2751

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