“Monkey Shines” stars Jason Beghe, John Pankow, Melanie Parker, Kate McNeil, along with many other widely unknown actors and actresses. It’s directed by George A. Romero and is based on a novel written by Michael Stewart.

Once a man named Allen (Jason Beghe) becomes completely paralyzed from the neck down, he loses all hope for life. That is until he meets a monkey named Ella, who is trained to help him out around the house and keep him company. Unaware that Ella is a part of an experiment, he soon finds out that Ella has become jealous that Allen is developing a relationship with a beautiful woman named Kate (Melanie Parker).

The acting wasn’t terrible, but the monkey does out-act most of the actors that appear in this George A. Romero misfire. I’ll have to admit I was hoping for something more. Something that would appear to be original and clever. It never seemed to take off. Like a firework that fails to explode, it makes for one disappointing wait. Director George A. Romero has done much better work than this, which proves that he wasn’t in his prime form.

No thrills or chills are stored in “Monkey Shines”. George A. Romero is a director with a talent for making bad movies into good ones. This time he fails to do so. Don’t expect much style or wit to come from this snoozer. It is a good thing that George A. Romero came to his senses and decided to make “Night of the Living Dead”. He is a master at making zombie movies, not psychotic killer monkey movie.

One of George A. Romero’s least entertaining horror movies, although killer monkeys are pretty funny. This psychotic monkey thriller just didn’t work for me considering that Romero has done much, much more impressive and effective work than this one. Not to mention that it wasn’t scary and lacked the much anticipated gore that usually comes with a movie created by one of the true masters of horror. I wouldn’t go as far as saying that this failed completely, but it’s nothing to go bananas over.

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