What’s funny about Blood Monkey is not only the title of the film, but the fact that it was put together like a Sci-Fi original movie. However Blood Monkey has still not been shown on the channel that usually does show many of the film released by RHI Entertainment. For some reason though it yet to be seen as a Saturday night original film.
Six students have arrived in Africa to study apes with the r Professor Hamilton ( F. Murray Abraham, Thir13en Ghosts), only to discover Hamilton’s has a plan far different from what they expect.. He wants to seek out the myth of a tribe of killer chimpanzees living in the jungles. If he can find these creatures; it would make him part of history and not to mention very wealthy.. After traveling to the remote part of the jungle and setting up camp, the students soon realize that this monkey is a force to be reckoned with. They all want to leave, But Hamilton has plans for them that will help him in his quest to document the creature. Now, in order to survive the students must come up with a plan of action and fight their way out of the jungle to safety.
I was pleasantly surprised that the script was actually not half bad. Despite the very poor look and production value of the film the story is what kept me interested in watching the movie though. The dialogue is not that great, and their is a lack of character development. But the overall plot was paced very well and I was able to get into the film right from the get go.
Besides Academy Award winning actor F. Murray Abraham being in this film, I really cant’ say the acting in the movie was anything special. Sure, the performances of each actor in the film was alright, but they were nothing to go crazy over. I would say that it’s better acting then you see in your normal B-movie, but nothing worth remembering. There were a few scene where some of the actors delivered some very corny dialogue and it seemed as if they were going to laugh after delivering the lines, but hey, that’s the screen writers fault, and in this film it seemed like the actors knew that some of their lines were a bit over the top.
The point in which this film fails miserably in it’s overall feel as coming off as a realistic film is in it’s production value. First off the film was shot in Thailand, and they tried to pawn off the film as being shot in the African Jungles. Granted I’ve never been to either country before, but I must admit that they had me fooled with jungle scenes. I’m not sure if they were on location for the majority of this film but the jungle they shot in did not look as dense as most jungles do. Not to say that the locations were not great, it just didn’t look like they were deep in the jungles of Africa. The visuals effects in the movie were terrible. The monkey looked like it was straight out of a Super Nintendo game and it ruin all believable vision I had in this film. the make-up effects were not half bad, but it was the overall unreal use of the visuals that really ruined this film for me.
Overall, If your really into these Sci-fi original movies, and your probably in the minority. Then you might enjoy this film. I will go on record as saying that it is one of the better films I’ve seen, even though this has yet to appear on Sci-fi it is truly a lot better than the majority of the ones that I have seen. It does however have very poor visuals like the majority of them do. But this one does actually have a very easy plot to follow and if your willing to watch the uncut version of this film on DVD, then the graphic make-up effects will surely please any fan who need their fix of gore when watching killer animals movies or just your regular horror film in general. Blood Monkey is actually pat of a new DVD series released by RHI Entertainment called The Maneater series so look for other titles with the Maneater label on them.
– Horror Bob
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
