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When I first read the news that one of my favorite modern directors, Osgood Perkins (Longlegs, The Blackcoat’s Daughter), would be directing The Monkey, the article was accompanied by a familiar image: a toy monkey with a cracked-out face, banging two cymbals together. My brain immediately went to George A. Romero’s underappreciated 1988 film, Monkey Shines.
I also immediately assumed Monkey Shines was based on a King story—a natural assumption. What hasn’t King written at this point, after all? In reality, of course, Perkins/King’s The Monkey has absolutely nothing to do with Romero’s Monkey Shines. But while the two properties aren’t officially connected apart from their similar imagery – oddly enough, Perkins had to redesign the toy monkey from King’s story due to a Disney copyright! – they do have a few things in common. Both Monkey Shines and The Monkey feature bat-shit crazy stories full of dark humor, both helmed by fearless directors. So, if The Monkey’s release in theaters this week gives you a reason to revisit Monkey Shines? It’s (Os)good a reason as any!
George A. Romero’s Monkey Shines began as a novel written not by King, but by novelist Michael Stewart. The rights eventually landed in the hands of Orion Pictures, who wisely hired Romero to direct, specifically because of the Dawn of the Dead director’s ability to seamlessly inject dark humor into tragic horror stories.
This is immediately apparent in Monkey Shines as we meet our hero, Allan (Jason Beghe), and experience the harsh dismantling of his life. He’s a handsome, happy guy with a beautiful woman in his bed, out for a run with a backpack full of bricks. The world seems beautiful—where the sun is shining and passerby cyclists toss out high-fives instead of blocking traffic when you’re late for work. That is, until the moment a dog jumps out and scares Allan face-first into a moving truck.
Allan then wakes up to the harsh reality that he is paralyzed from the neck down. His girlfriend leaves him for the “genius” doctor who’d supposedly fixed him (Stanley Tucci). His nurse often quotes the Bible but is only a set of wings away from being a spawn of Satan herself. His mother is an overbearing guilt machine with a smile, and his best friend, Geoffrey (John Pankow), is like a depressing ’90s “HBO Special” version of Re-Animator’s Herbert West. It’s a positive for the audience, because Geoffrey feels like he came directly from a Frank Henenlotter set. But it’s terrible for Allan, who even attempts to suffocate himself to death in some dry-leaning plastic.
And we haven’t even gotten to the monkey yet!
Allan’s maladjusted scientist friend decides that to truly reap the benefits of his “smart” injections, his prize test monkey, Ella, needs to get out of the lab. So, he employs Melanie (Kate McNeil), a gorgeous monkey specialist, to work with the animal as it becomes an aide for Allan. He also hopes it will help Allan kick his depression. It works all too well—Allan and Ella become best friends, filling a hole in his heart. But when he learns that his girlfriend-stealing doctor may be responsible for his paralysis, the lab injections somehow bond a telepathic relationship between him and his monkey. As a result, Ella begins using Allan’s buried resentment and anger along with its own jealousy to murder anything and everyone around him.
I’m always surprised that Monkey Shines isn’t considered alongside Romero’s most praised projects. Then again, I feel the same way about another tragic Romero tale in 2000’s Bruiser. Perhaps people were too attached to Romero’s penchant for zombie classics. Whatever the reason, Monkey Shines faltered badly at the box office and feels, unfortunately, forgotten—even in the horror world. It’s the kind of movie that you wonder, if released today, could it have gained traction with the right marketing department? Like The Monkey has with NEON? It’s also possible that many rented Monkey Shines on a VHS whim expecting a slasher flick with a monkey gimmick. When in reality, it’s far more akin to something like Brian De Palma’s Raising Cain.
While the telepathic storyline is admittedly pretty silly, Monkey Shines remains a story told earnestly. It’s a movie full of impressive filmmaking moments, shockingly great acting, and maybe one of the best animal performances ever put to screen. Ella (Boo in real life) had a nuanced character arc that Romero and company handled like a symphony. Alongside the help of Tom Savini’s puppets, clever camera work, and DP James A. Contner (Cruising), there are almost no shots of monkey action that feel unnatural or unbelievable—an unfathomable feat when you consider the script. Though there are some janky edits due to a 240-page script that ended up with 40% to 50% cut out post-filming, Monkey Shines is a mostly seamless experience. I don’t want to think about how much CGI would tarnish this kind of film today.
Likely tracing back to his DIY roots despite working with one of the biggest budgets of his career, Romero and crew masterfully scale surreal moments that could have easily been over the top back to their base fears: A scene where Ella simply slams a cutting apparatus repeatedly against a shelf as dumbass Geoffrey reaches his hand towards her creates the type of dread a real life dismemberment would conjure. Another, when sweet Melanie is knocked unconscious and Ella attempts to light her hair on fire with a match, builds tension until we’re relieved that her hair is too wet to catch fire. That tension is only followed by Ella attempting to puncture Melanie’s unconscious face with a deadly syringe.
All this suspense is heightened by the fact that we’re experiencing it through Allan, who is forced to watch all this, unable to move his body. Finally, he manages to get Ella close enough so that he can bite his neck. Allan is then forced to brutally kill the monkey as if he were a rabid dog, frantically ripping his head back and forth with the monkey’s neck in his mouth. It gets wild, but the entire film is impressively held together by Jason Beghe’s performance. He’s the kind of guy it’s extremely easy to root for—whether it’s to get the girl, or stop a monkey from murdering his entire life. It’s a tough performance both physically and emotionally, and he never falters.
Romero’s original ending for the film featured that son of a bitch, Dean Burbage (one of Stephen Root’s first-ever film roles), carrying on the darkness of Geoffrey’s work. It was a darker ending that Romero relinquished due to bad test audience reactions and studio pressure. He did not, however, approve of the part of the theatrical ending where a dream sequence provides an Alien-esque jump scare where the monkey pops out of a bloody torso. A perfect example of the dichotomy between the expectation and imagery of Monkey Shines and the story at its heart. All this would lead to Romero happily returning to independent film for a while.
On its eye-grabbing surface, Monkey Shines promises horror in its most base form. This scary object/animal is about to royally fuck things up… and it does. But within that construction, it’s also a story about overcoming grief, how we treat others in their worst moments, and the results of burying our anger towards those who’ve hurt us.
And yeah, a scary monkey that will cut your throat with a shaving knife.
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