| Monkey Shines | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | George A. Romero |
| Screenplay by | George A. Romero |
| Based on | Monkey Shines byMichael Stewart |
| Produced by | Charles Evans |
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | James A. Contner |
| Edited by | Pasquale Buba |
| Music by | David Shire |
Production company | |
| Distributed by | Orion Pictures |
Release date |
|
Running time | 113 minutes[1] |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $7 million |
| Box office | $5.3 million |
Monkey Shines (also known asMonkey Shines: An Experiment in Fear) is a 1988 Americanscience fictionpsychological horror film written and directed byGeorge A. Romero and starringJason Beghe,Kate McNeil,John Pankow, andJoyce Van Patten. Its plot follows a young athlete who becomes a paralyzedquadriplegic, and develops a bond with an intelligentservice monkey named "Ella" who becomes homicidal after she is injected with an experimental serum of humanbrain tissue. It is based on the 1983 Britishnovel of the same title byMichael Stewart.
ProducersPeter Grunwald andCharles Evans ofOrion Pictures acquired the rights to Stewart's novel in 1985, and began production two years later, with Romero assigned to direct. The film marked Romero's first major studio feature, and was his second-most expensive film at that time, with a budget of $7 million. The setting was changed fromOxford, England, where the novel was set, toPittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a city in which Romero had long resided and often set his films. Principal photography ofMonkey Shines took place in Pittsburgh in the late summer and early fall of 1987. It had a protractedpost-production and editing process, as Romero shot more film than he had on any of his previous projects, particularly due to the use of live monkeys.
Monkey Shines was released theatrically by Orion Pictures in July 1988, receiving mixed reviews and a lackluster box-office reception, grossing $5.3 million against its $7 million budget. In the intervening years, the film has been noted by critics as an offbeat entry in Romero'sfilmography, and has earned status as a minorcult film.[2]
Law student and athlete Allan Mann is struck by a truck and renderedquadriplegic following surgery. As his domineering mother and uncaring nurse try helping him, Allan, now in anSNP-equipped wheelchair, struggles to adjust. His friend, Geoffrey Fisher, suggests he get aCapuchin monkey as aservice animal to lift his spirits and help around the house. Geoffrey has an ulterior motive: He is a research scientist under pressure to produce results. Geoffrey has dosed a monkey in his lab with a serum to boost its intelligence, and believes the serum's effects will be amplified if the monkey is around humans.
Geoffrey enlists Melanie Parker, a specialist in traininghelper monkeys. Geoffrey provides the Capuchin he has been experimenting on, claiming it is normal. Allan names the monkey Ella, and he and Melanie work closely training her. Initially, Ella is a huge help to Allan. Allan grows very close to Melanie.
Allan grows short-tempered and resentful. Ella, too, becomes aggressive. Allan dreams of running through the grass at night, and believes he has atelepathic link with Ella, whom he suspects can escape the house. Geoffrey finds evidence confirming this but, pleased with Ella's intelligence, does not tell Allan and Melanie. After the pet bird of Allan's uncaring nurse pesters him, Allan wishes it was gone - that night, Ella kills the bird and leaves it in the nurse's slipper, causing the nurse to quit in a rage.
Allan gets a second opinion about his paralysis and discovers he may have been misdiagnosed; another surgery may enable him to walk again. Before attempting the risky surgery, the doctor needs Allan to demonstrate some ability to willingly move an appendage. Rather than feeling happy at this news, Allan is furious with his original surgeon who is incompetent and egotistical as well as now dating Allan's former girlfriend. He fantasizes about burning the man's cabin down. That night, Ella kills the surgeon and his girlfriend by burning down the cabin with a pack of stolen matches.
After seeing the fire in a vision and having it confirmed by his mother, the horrified Allan believes that Ella is carrying out his dark impulses. He also realizes that when he is around Ella, he becomes easily enraged. Allan demands that Geoffrey take Ella away. With Ella gone, Allan becomes more relaxed; he spends the weekend at Melanie's house and the two have sex.
Allan returns home and tries to mend bridges with his mother, but feels a burst of rage at her utter contempt of Melanie. Allan realizes that Ella must be nearby. Allan's mother ignores his desperate warnings that she leave, and instead takes a bath. Ella kills her by dropping a hairdryer into the tub,electrocuting her. Allan briefly answers a call from Melanie before Ella disables the phone. Realizing Allan may be in trouble, Melanie departs for his house.
Geoffrey arrives and confesses that Ella was an experimental subject. The enraged Allan demands Geoffrey leave, upset at being used for an experiment yet concerned for his safety with Ella around. Instead, Geoffrey pursues Ella around the house, intending toput her down with one of thesyringes ofsodium pentobarbitone he has brought. Ella gets hold of a syringe and injects it into Geoffrey, killing him.
Ella returns to Allan, who is filled with self loathing because he believes that Ella is acting out his own impulses. He screams at Ella, but the monkey responds byurinating on him. Melanie arrives and Ella attacks her. This convinces Allan that Ella is not simply carrying out his desires, but is acting as a jealous romantic partner. Melanie falls and is knocked unconscious. As Allan rages at Ella, she ignores him and prepares to inject Melanie with Geoffrey's other syringe. Allan calms himself and moves his right arm to engage his tape deck. As peaceful music plays, he lovingly summons Ella to cuddle close to him, and she complies. When Ella comes near enough, Allan bites her on the neck and slams her body against the back of his wheelchair and into his tape deck, killing her.
Now that he has demonstrated a voluntary movement, the surgery can be performed and is a success. Melanie arrives at the hospital to pick him up, and Allan stands up from his wheelchair and gets into the van with her.
Film scholar Tony Williams interpretsMonkey Shines as a "complex film dealing with the ambiguous nature of human motivations," and humans' inability to deal with the consequences of their own desires.[4]
Journalist Michael Wilmington notes that the film's thematic weight rests in the presentation of the antagonistic monkey, Ella: "The audience that rejects her as a little toy-terror--or the movie as a piece of icy misanthropy which perversely trashes women, animals and quadraplegics--misses the point. Watching this movie, one loves Ella, bleeds for her, wishes desperately to preserve her from harm. But hell and humanity carry their own demands."[5]
United Artists had originally optionedMichael Stewart's novel,Monkey Shines (1983), for a film adaptation in 1984, having purchased the rights for $20,000.[6] The option included film rights to another novel by Stewart,Far Cry (1984).[6] However, seven months later, in 1985, the option expired, after which producerCharles Evans purchased the rights to the novel.[6]
Executive producer Gerald Paonessa commented that he had wantedGeorge A. Romero to direct, as he felt he "had a wonderful, dark sense of humor."[7] Romero was convinced to direct after being shown scripttreatments of the project.[7]
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Monkey Shines marked Romero's second feature film produced with a major studio, after 1982'sCreepshow, as well as the second most-expensive.[8] The production budget was approximately $7 million.[6] The film was shot inPittsburgh, Pennsylvania,[9] withprincipal photography beginning on July 31, 1987.[6] Romero, a longtime resident of Pittsburgh who set most of his prior films there, chose the location.[7] Additional filming occurred at theMellon Institute atCarnegie Mellon University, as well as a private barn inMurrysville, which was converted into the monkey training center which Melanie operates.[10] Interiors of Allan's house were constructed by set designer Cletus Anderson, a longtime collaborator of Romero's.[8]
The film's shooting schedule was extensive, consisting of twelve-hour days.[8] Romero's wife and assistant, Christine (who also appears in the film) commented that it was the "toughest shoot we've ever had."[8] For filming Boo, the capuchin monkey portraying Ella, Romero required multiple monkey doubles.[8] Additionally, fourpuppets of the monkey were designed byTom Savini, one of which was remote-controlled, each adorned withyak fur.[8] Helping Hands, a service animal program fromBoston, assisted with the monkeys featured in the film.[7] Filming concluded in October 1987.[6]
At the time of filming, Romero commented that "Post-production on this will be very heavy. I hope to be finished by the end of March. It's a huge edit. I'm shooting more film than I ever have because of the monkeys... As our budgets grow, everything takes longer."[7] The film's distributor, Orion Pictures, was desperate for a hit, as it was in financial difficulty. First, the studio forced Romero to add a happy ending to the picture, a plot device which the director had long avoided in favor of more ambiguous endings; originally, Romero had intended to conclude the film in the same manner as its source novel, in which Allan does not recover from his accident.[11] Second, after poor previews, the studio recut the film without Romero's knowledge to add a "shock" ending.[9]
Another issue was the film's overall length, as Romero had completed a very long and involved shooting script that numbered over 240 pages. This resulted in a first cut of which 40 to 50% of the shot footage met the cutting room floor in the need to get the film reduced to a practical length. Upset with the way his project had been handled, Romero returned to independent films.
The original intended ending of the film was unreleased until 2014, when it was included as a bonus feature on its debutBlu-ray release. In the original ending, prior to Dorothy and Geoffrey's deaths, Geoffrey's boss Dean Harold Burbage (Stephen Root) steals the remaining brain tissue serum and injects it into all of Geoffrey's remaining test monkeys. After Allan regains his ability to move on his own, Burbage is assaulted by animal rights protesters who had earlier attacked Geoffrey for experimenting on monkeys. Burbage insults them then returns to the lab where it's discovered that all of the remaining monkeys have completely taken control of his mind.
Monkey Shines was released theatrically in the United States on July 29, 1988, opening in 1,181 theaters.[12] It grossed $1.9 million during its opening weekend.[12] It eventually went on to gross a total of $5.3 million in the United States over its 22-week theatrical run.[12]
Several critics praisedMonkey Shines for its portrayal of itsphilosophical themes: David Kehr of theChicago Tribune heralded it as Romero's "most complex and challenging creations... [Romero's] is a style of philosophical fiction that seems hardly to belong to the 20th Century at all, but rather to the 18th Century school ofSwift,Diderot andVoltaire. Like those authors, he uses satire as one of his principal tools and principal weapons," concluding that, "Monkey Shines is an extremely thoughtful, provocative film; it's also a damn good horror movie."[13]
Other critics, such as theLos Angeles Times's Michael Wilmington, commented on the film's characterization of Ella, and the relationship between her and Allan; comparing Ella toKing Kong, Wilmington noted: "The story’s dark pivot is thesymbiosis between Allan and Ella: a match made in hell. Ella, preternaturally sensitive to all her master’s desires, becomes infected with his hatreds--just as, in the lab, she’s been made addicted to a serum containing human brain tissue. It’s not a matter of the beast emerging against the human--but of humans perverting the beast."[5] Richard Harrington ofThe Washington Post made similar observations about the character dynamic: "Alternating between comfort and revenge, [Ella] seems the ultimate victim, an unwitting pawn. Her scenes with Beghe are at once tender and terrifying as they battle it out to see who's the boss. Some closeups make Ella seem as ferocious as King Kong, but at other times she looks as if she's just been kicked out of theGarden of Eden."[14]
Roger Ebert was less enthusiastic about the film, awarding it two and a half out of a possible four stars; the film's main flaw, wrote Ebert, was its being overlong with too many subplots: "Romero loses momentum in the closing passages because he has too many loose ends to keep track of. Somewhere within this movie's two hours or so is hidden an absolutely spellbinding 90-minute thriller."[3] Caryn James ofThe New York Times panned the film, writing that the screenplay "wraps up more loose ends than anyone cares about, yet leaves some nagging bits of illogic," also criticizing the film for its "calm, and tedious, exposition."[15]
The film was met with criticism from somedisability rights organizations such asADAPT and Adapting Society, due to a depiction of a toy monkey in a wheelchair in initial promotional materials.[6][16] Members of ADAPT formed a picket line in wheelchairs at theHollywood Pacific Theater the Saturday of the film's opening weekend.[6] Bill Bolte, a member of Adapt California, commented: "The idea of a monkey attendant turning into a monster is appalling."[16] On August 10, Orion Pictures issued a public apology, removing the content from media advertisements for the film, promising to consult disability experts for promotional materials of upcoming projects.[6]
Monkey Shines holds a 55% approval rating on the internetreview aggregatorRotten Tomatoes, based on 33 critic reviews, with its consensus reading: "While not one of horror legend George Romero's more evolved efforts,Monkey Shines delivers enough primal fear to satisfy more forgiving genre enthusiasts."[1] The film possesses a score of 71 onMetacritic based on 14 reviews.[17] Contemporary film scholarJohn Kenneth Muir deemedMonkey Shines a "harrowing and fascinating film," and praised its realistic depiction of the monkey, Ella.[18]
Several parodies exist, some notable examples are:
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Home Entertainment released the film onDVD on September 28, 1999.[19]Scream Factory released the film onBlu-ray for the first time in November 2014.[20] In November 2019, Scream Factory announced this Blu-ray would be goingout of print in 2020.[21]
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One of the trailers showed atoy monkey banging its cymbals while sitting in a wheel chair. This trailer is known for its poem.