Monkey Shines

Talk about perception.

When I was a kid I saw a teaser trailer for this movie which was just a Toy monkey playing the symbols in a dark background, the same as the poster. I thought it was going to be the sacrist movie of all time.

One cool thing about seeing this movie as an adult i can use my perspective to make a fair case for the movie. Despite this being a film by Horror Icon George Romero who single  handedly  changed our preceptive on the zombie with his breakthrough Night og the Living Dead, Monkey Shines is not a Horror movie. It’s a psychological thriller.

This dude get hit by a truck that paralyzes him. He goes into depression he looses his girl (to his doctor) and after trying to kill himself, his friend Jeff gives him the gift of a helper monkey that he grows attached to but more importantly, the monkey Claire grows so attached that she will do anything for him…anything.

It’s not scary, and as a kid or a teenage seeing this I would have said “worse movie of all time” but as an adult, I realized the Romero had a story to tell that differ from social commentaries he gives us with the dead series. With that in mind it’s not the worse movie I ever scene. I’ll give props to the actors who I don’t know (with the exception of Stanley Tucci as the doctor), they gave some well done performances. Let’s also give a shout out to the monkey who nailed it.

I don’t have much to say outside of that, it was not bad, and it definitely was not what I thought after all these years.