Blood Monkey

Okay, I admit it. I love bad movies. I mean train-wreck bad. I mean train-wreck-crashing-through-a-kindergarten-class-of-orphans bad. After many years of Mystery Science Theater 3000 fandom, I've simply developed a taste for cinematic ineptitude. It's a real hoot.

But sadly, despite the promisingly silly title, Blood Monkey was a big let down. Was it bad? Well, duh! It's called Blood Monkey, for godsakes! Of course it's bad! What did you expect? But was it fun-bad? Sadly, no. It wasn't a spectacular disaster in the way I was hoping. It was merely lame.

To the filmmakers' credit, things could have been A LOT worse. I've seen MUCH worse from the good folks over on the Sci-Fi Channel. (S.S. Doomtrooper, anyone? Sweet Lord a'mighty, THAT one will leave a mark!)

Clearly this movie was shot for about eleven dollars (ten of which, I'm sure went straight into the pocket of the perpetually slumming Mr. Abraham), but surprisingly the location work is actually pretty good. Unlike most movies of this ilk, this wasn't shot in some abandoned warehouse in Bulgaria. The rainforest locations used here are actually pretty stunning.

The acting, on the other hand ... well, it's about as godawful as you'd expect. Made all the worse because Abraham actually seems to be putting a little effort into it. Not that he's going to win any awards, but his baseline competence makes the amateur-porn-level "performances" of the kids stand out in even starker relief.

And yes, for a movie entitled "Blood Monkey," there's precious little actual monkey in it. Mercifully, we only get about 12 frames of terrible CG gorilla in the closing nanoseconds of the film. Which, in many ways, is smart, I suppose. If all you've got is an awful CG gorilla, it's best not to show it very much. However, if you're like me, the more bad CG gorilla they show, the funnier the movie could be. So, for me, I definitely mourned the lack of monkey.

The upshot is, if you're in the market for a good, scary movie ... then what the hell are you doing on the Blood Monkey page!? You should know better! Have you no sense at all, man?

But if you're looking for an unintentionally hilarious campy movie that you can roundly mock with your friends ... well, this isn't it either. It's too incompetent to be good ... but it's too competent to be fun.

Although there is one unintentionally hilarious scene where a troop of unseen Blood Monkeys in the canopy rain urine down upon the campsite of our hapless heroes below. Clearly they must have access to tanker trucks full of Mountain Dew in the middle of the rainforest because the fire-hose-like strength and volume of the Blood Monkey urinary stream is quite something to behold!

Though, sadly, one scene of researchers being peed on by murderous, blood-thirsty gorillas is just not enough for me to recommend this film.

Before RHI Entertainment decided that the opening scene of every movie had to show the monster in all its badly-rendered CGI glory; before the studio decided that gore shots were the only thing anybody cared about; before the company gave up trying to make interesting movies, there was Blood Monkey.

Mind you, Blood Monkey is not good. But Blood Monkey tries so hard that I can't help but admire its moxie.

Blood Monkey begins with the usual monster attack scene, but it doesn't show the monkey. Which is actually a gorilla. Scratch that, according to Professor Hamilton (F. Murray Abraham, lost in a jungle far away from his Oscar-winning role) it's more like a clan of sasquatches, the missing evolutionary link to humans and apes.

Anyway, Profession Hamilton is mad - quite mad! - and in his egomaniacal grab for fame ropes in a bunch of stereotypical graduate students into the jungles of Thailand. There's the jock (Matt Reeves), the hot chick (Laura Aikman), the nerd (Sebastian Armesto), the perky reporter (Freishia Bomambehran), the final girl (Amy Manson) and the serious guy (Matt Ryan). Hamilton thoughtfully provides a tracking bracelet so that he can keep track of their corpses as the bloodthirsty gorillas kidnap and dismember the grad students. This plan, if you can call it a plan, is doomed from the start.

Ironically, Blood Monkey is at its best when not showing any monkeys. The graduate students' fear is palpable even if they are a collective bunch of idiots there to die for our amusement and the monkey's pleasure. Abraham chews up the scenery more than the gorillas chew on their victims. If it weren't for the wooden acting, the long stretches of dialogue that amount to nothing, and the sheer stupidity of the students, this could actually be a pretty good horror movie. But then you get to the part with the pee.

Oh the pee! Monkeys, you see, pee on their prey. It's a form of dominance. And it's got to be the funniest thing ever to grace a horror movie.

These monkeys don't just pee...they PEE, unleashing a gout of urine that lasts for minutes on end, enough to make the hapless victims think its raining. There are ways to film this that might have been less chortle-worthy, maybe by not showing the streams pouring from off screen - actually forget about it, there's simply no way to have monkeys pee on you in a movie and not have it be side-splittingly hilarious.

The movie tries hard to recover from all the peeing, but any pretense of f horror is over. We end on a down-note inspired by the Blair Witch Project with a night vision camera and a final reveal of the aforementioned blood gorilla.

But all I kept thinking was: man those monkeys drank a lot. And you will need to if you want to enjoy this film.

BLOOD MONKEY

This film was the first in the on going series of films called the "Maneater" series and while it is far from a classic it is not as bad as some say. In fact when compared to other films that debut on The SyFy channel this is some what good. I have to admit that am I not only a fan of the series but a fan of bad B movies so this series is right up my alley. Will I lie and say this is the best movie ever, no, and in fact it is not even the best in the series. I feel the best thus far from the ones I have seen is "Eye of the Beast" but you will have to read that review to find out about it.

The story is all about a group of young students I believe that are studying in a field related to nature I suppose, why else would they be there. Any way they are brought there by a crazy Professor who may or may not know about the deadly creatures that lay in wake for them. There is the typical male role who is the jock type that thinks he is the man, a chick with a camera to document it all, a "geek" as society would label him and your average bunch of college kids. Add in the crazy professor and is fine but mean assistant and you have the characters in this movie. As they make their way through the jungle and pass obstacle after obstacle in comes the Blood Monkeys or apes or gorillas or what ever.

This movie is far from perfect because other than F. Murray Abraham no one in this film is a fine thespian it would seem. Abraham is really the only one that is actually good in this because the others are either plain bad or just uh, which means forgettable or just there for body count. Well the guy who was making it at the end was ok as was the "geek" guy but that was it. George LaVoo and Gary Dauberman really need to work on the script because while the intentions were obviously good since it is entertaining at times it was just a bad rip off of "Congo". Robert Young is the director of this and while it is like I said not the best film ever at least it moves along and has some interesting moments in it.

With that said in the last line one of the best moments on this movie is when the monkeys or apes or gorillas or whatever mark their territory or should I say their prey when they let loose with the juice all over the tents that the group are sleeping in. they think it is just rain which makes it even better and a part involving a foot is really the only legit tense moment in the film. Also there are a few funny parts as far as dialogue and a moment when they come down a cliff is pretty good. The thing that is best about this film though is the beautiful setting in the jungle which for a low budget flick is marvelous. I think they actually filmed this in Thailand from what I have read, it shows trust me.

Like I said this movie is far from the worst movie ever but at the same time it is not very memorable other than the marking scene. Would I recommend this movie to who ever is reading this, well that depends. I think every one should ultimately judge a film for themselves so in the way maybe you should check it out but to be honest you could skip it. If you like bad B movies and things like nature run muck flicks then this may be for you, maybe.