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MONKEY SHINES (1988)
MGM DVD (region 1)
d. George Romero; pr. Charles Evans; scr. George Romero; ph. James A. Contner; ed. Pasquale Buba; m. David Shire; prod d. Cletus Anderson; cast. Jason Beghe, Joyce van Patten, John Pankow, Kate McNeil, Christine Forrest, Stanley Tucci (113 mins)
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The Declining Stature of a Horror Master

Director George A. Romero is known as a pioneer of visceral horror.  His explicit, graphic works ironically helped both to stigmatize horror with mainstream audiences and yet oddly legitimize it with many critics. 

Always provocative, he has hence become something of a cult director, with several of his films perennially popular at midnight movie screenings.  His gory Living Dead trilogy is at the forefront of intelligent, adult horror although he has been less able to find success outside of these zombie movies and his association with friend Stephen King (they collaborated on the original Creepshow, with Romero later helming the adaptation of The Dark Half).  After his Day of the Dead was widely considered by critics to be a letdown, Romero strategically responded with the offbeat Monkey Shines.   By now, however, his reputation as one of the great horror masters was sliding, his career opportunities not helped perhaps by his decision to remain staunchly outside of the Hollywood establishment (despite many offers).  Monkey Shines, while straddling conventional horror films, thrillers and the independent scene, did little to alleviate the decline in his critical standing and remains an obscure work, although it is one of the more provocative of 1980s genre movies, adult and complex in nature at a time when horror movies were aimed at a teenage audience bred on an unrelenting glut of slasher films.

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Synopsis (contains spoilers)

Monkey Shines tells the story of a young man (Jason Beghe), a law student, who goes out jogging one morning as per his usual routine and is terribly injured in a car accident. 

The accident causes severe spinal damage and even after extensive, corrective surgery he is left a quadriplegic.  His mother (Joyce Van Patten) duly returns home, to his disgust, and hires a nurse (Christine Forrest) to care for him, also outfitting his home with the latest disabled-friendly gadgetry, hoping to make him as independent as possible.  Beghe’s closest friend (John Pankow) is a researcher at a local university and there has been experimenting with capuchin monkeys, injecting them with a serum made in part from human brain tissue in the hope of increasing their intelligence.  Feeling concern for his friend, he donates a subject to a woman who specializes in training these monkeys to assist disabled people, though he keeps his research on this particular monkey a secret from her.  After training is complete, together they bring the monkey to Beghe, who soon warms to the creature, named Ella.  Ella becomes an invaluable aide, much to the consternation of the uptight nurse.  Soon, however, Beghe starts to believe that he has more of a connection to the monkey than is evident, something even telekinetic in nature.  When his mother returns to take care of him fully, he can barely control his oedipal rage and in turn fears for her safety.

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Animal-Human Telepathy and the Surrogacy of Projection

Much of the film concentrates on the efforts of a recent quadriplegic adjusting to a new life and finding companionship in, of all things, a trained monkey. 

However, the monkey is more than trained; it has been enhanced through smart drugs by Pankow, intent on making the animal more human.  Perhaps inevitably, the animal cannot cope with the added intelligence, as the film asserts that intelligence and reason artificially stimulated in an animal will in effect turn that animal both emotionally reactive and psychotic.  The clash between instinct and deliberation will be too much for it: it cannot handle a superego.  Fans of Stephen King will of course note that the “Shines” of the title refers in part to King’s The Shining, which dealt with telepathy.  Thus, the film explores its developing bond between the man and the monkey as they enter into a kind of mutual telekinesis.  The now overly sensitive monkey feels Beghe’s complex resentments and affection but cannot process them rationally; in turn Beghe feels the monkey’s instinct, a primal rage he considers the very real form of the Devil.  This clash between human and animal, between reason and instinct finally leads to psychosis when it is complicated by the monkey’s apparently empathetic and even romantic regard for Beghe.  In this unusual but important and even rather affecting love story aspect Romero conveys pity for the monkey as much as inviting fear.

Monkey Shines falls uneasily between two stools as the human drama and the fascinating use of trained monkeys to assist paralysed people make for a realistic context that the segue into a form of psychic horror story threatens to undermine. 

Thus, the study of the changing attitude, despair and final hope of a man who has his life turned around is almost impossible for Romero to convincingly resolve, and the ending is ultimately a poor cop-out to the drama.  Nevertheless, as a clever twist on evolutionary horror, Romero carefully and slowly essays the emotional inter-dependence of man and animal with a genuine concern for both.  His main point is that the enhanced-animal cannot ultimately cope with the complexities of the human world it has been forced to almost consciously realize and as a result will psychologically collapse.  This is a quite ambitious thematic undertaking and is for the most part handled quite successfully, the idea of displacement onto surrogates being a major source of horror.  An animal, having only primal instinct to fall back on, is incapable of truly coping with human responsibilities.  Romero’s dual thesis is hence that intelligence and reason will drive the emotionally-inexperienced beast crazy and that uncontrolled instinct alone will turn even an emotionally-complex man violent and bestial.  Love and empathy, integral to humanity, cannot ultimately temper this irreconcilable clash.

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Inhospitability within Entrapping Interiors

Romero’s visual style here stresses cold and naturally drab, even rather de-saturated environs as the veneer of elegant but distinct inhospitability infiltrates every texture. 

Although the transfer is mostly capable, the region 4 review disc was available in 4:3 fullscreen only, implying that some of Romero’s compositional finesse was therefore lost.  In terms of clarity, there are some frame edge definition issues and murky blacks on occasion.  Nevertheless, the film is effectively wintry in feel and has a documentary-like authenticity in the details of life as a quadriplegic person, a realistic underpinning for the thriller territory.  Much is thus made of notions of confinement and freedom, and as expected, the clash between mobility and immobility is a dominant motif, most exhilarating (because dangerous and ominous) in the point of view shots of the monkey travelling – an experience Beghe shares in a kind of dream state.  The first use of this point of view shot effectively marks the juncture where the film segues from drama into psychological thriller.  Romero’s style here, however, feels oddly distanced and remote, coldly realistic and detailed in sets and décor but rather passionless until the latter stages – as if psychological disturbance invigorates life.  The ethics of animal experimentation run through the laboratory sequences (and especially in the comparison between Pankow and his boss).

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Vocal Intonation as Inter-Species Communication

The sound transfer is available in Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo only and is efficient without ever being truly vibrant, although when needed is dynamic within its limitations. 

Thankfully crisp is the fine score, initially quite suitably autumnal and melancholic in feel although progressively ominous.  The overall transfer is mostly centred, with much emphasis on tone of voice as the key to character.  Thus, it is through such vocal intonation that Beghe interacts with Ella and the emotional, even romantic core of their affection is increasingly evident.  As rage starts to enter into their relationship, so too the vocal energy seems to transform their compositional relationship in the frame as the editing becomes more jarring and the compositions harder, stressing their interaction and then their impending explosive collision as the implicit violence in such editing rhythms makes some of the film appropriately uncomfortable.  There is a sly use of jungle sounds for the point of view shots, reminding one that despite the monkey’s apparent intelligence, she is still after all an animal.  Easy listening music is also used to ironic effect towards the film’s end, providing the appearance of calm surroundings.  The monkey noises are well integrated into the aural design and minor sounds make for a realistic build-up to more suspenseful scenes.  Monkey Shines is a very measured film in pace and the sound transfer follows this intent extremely well.

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For the Collector and Romero Enthusiast

In the way of special features are an original theatrical trailer and a photo gallery of stills from the movie.  Multi-zone collectors should note that both the US region 1 and the UK region 2 MGM DVD releases of this movie are listed as being in anamorphic widescreen and in a Dolby Digital Surround sound transfer, making either version a more attractive proposition for Romero enthusiasts than this region 4 Australian release.

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USA DVD PURCHASE INFORMATION: Monkey Shines
UK DVD PURCHASE INFORMATION: Monkey Shines [DVD] [1988]
AUSTRALIA DVD PURCHASE: Monkey Shines

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