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Monkey Shines
starring: Jason Beghe, John Pankow, Kate McNeil, Joyce Van Patten, Christine Forrest
directed by: George A. Romero

Used Price: $0.60
Collectible Price: $10.00
Third Party New Price: $1.19

Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Binding: VHS Tape
EAN: 9780792899129
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, NTSC
ISBN: 0792899121
Label: Orion
Manufacturer: Orion
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Orion
Release Date: October 06, 1998
Running Time: 113 minutes
Sales Rank: 70201
Studio: Orion
Theatrical Release Date: July 29, 1988

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Editorial Review:

Amazon.com:
George A. Romero monkeys with nature in this gripping and fearful tale based on the novel by Michael Stewart. Allan Mann (John Beghe) is a law student who's hit by a truck while jogging, leaving him a quadriplegic. Luckily, his scientist friend Geoffrey (John Pankow) is experimenting with capuchin monkeys, making them smarter with injections of human genetic material. Geoffrey arranges with Melanie (Kate McNeil)--who's working on an experimental program that matches monkeys with paraplegics to perform guide-dog functions--to train his prize subject, Ella (Boo), to act as Allan's helper. Allan is paralyzed from the neck down, confined to a wheelchair he moves by working a lever with his mouth. He's really vulnerable. Ella can fetch things and do errands, and a real emotional bond develops between Mann and monkey. Too strong a bond, it turns out, as Allan begins to experience dreams from the monkey's-eye view (capuchin-cam), Ella's boosted intelligence giving her the residual benefit of a telepathic ability in which the monkey begins to act out Allan's subconscious rage. Allan's nurse, former girlfriend, doctor, even his mother are terrorized by the creepy capuchin, leading to a showdown between Ella and Allan himself. With Allan trapped in a house, alone with a super-intelligent and malevolent monkey, there is plenty of suspense to make you rip holes in your upholstery. But perhaps even more tension could have been wrung out of this story if Ella had been more sympathetic (being as she was the victim of a scientific experiment gone bad), her wicked antics the acts of a kind of exterminating angel. Performances are brilliant by both Ella and Jason Beghe, who turns in one of cinema's most accurate and intelligent depictions of a high-level quadriplegic character. --Jim Gay

Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- Genius Romero momentarily evolves into a primitive Hollywood monkey
Sorry George, I love ya, but what happened? Monkey Shines has an incredibly intelligent and unique premise. After a debilitating accident left him paralyzed, Allan Mann is introduced to Ella, a highly intelligent monkey. This animal has specialized training to help him adjust and cope with this drastic change in his lifestyle. It's a match made in heaven, Ella's skills and comprehensive abilities are extraordinary. But there is more to the story, of course. Ella has been injected with a special scientific formula, and the pair have unknowingly become part of an experiment. In the process they form an eerie bond, a possible telepathic link. Ella starts anticipating Allan's thoughts and acting out his subconscious desires. This soon turns violent, and the results are pretty frightening. The suspense builds steadily and provides some interesting subplots. Unfortunately though it gets a little too far-fetched and ridiculous. ... Read More

Rating:

- Man's Best Friend Is A Dog; His Worst Enemy Is A Genetically Altered Monkey
Hard to believe that the man who directed zombie horror fests such as "Night of the Living Dead," "Dawn of the Dead," and "Day of the Dead" would bring us "Monkey Shines" - a tense, psychological horror masterpiece involving a genetically altered lab monkey that becomes psychotic. The real star of this gem is Boo who plays Ella. A nerdy researcher with delusions of grandeur keeps injecting poor Ella with memory cells from a human brain. He then gives her to his best friend who has recently become a quadriplegic. They become co-dependent to the max. Soon the two become psychically linked. As Ella becomes more intelligent, she also becomes more violent. Soon she becomes the arms and legs for her owner and carries out his desire for vengeance against those who have harmed him.

The acting is superb. Jason Beghe ("One Missed Call") gives an excellent performance as the handsome, athletic law student ... Read More

Rating:

- 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 ... Read More

Rating:

- 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 ... Read More

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