Monkey Shines

Getting the best out of a middling novel, Romero finds new, less gruesome avenues for his skills. Read full review

What sets this apart from most modern horror movies, besides a sparing use of special effects, is Romero's careful development of a credible emotional context for the pyromaniac madness and razor-wielding terror. Romero's is a formidable talent which others can only hope to ape. Read full review

One of Romero's most complex and challenging creations. The film shifts effortlessly between playfulness and outrage, between a distanced irony and an awful, immediate horror. Read full review

What makes Monkey Shines special--beyond Romero's cinematic lucidity and sheer storytelling ability and the talent of his cast and crew--is the ambivalent responses aroused by monkey Boo as Ella. Read full review

While Romero's past films have for the most part been experiments in horror (or at best, terror), Monkey Shines moves in another direction -- the psychological thriller, with a difference. It's not just "a man and a woman" story; it's a man-woman-monkey triangle, and how the sparks do fly. Read full review

Despite a hokey prologue and ending (the latter imposed by producer Charles Evans), this is one of George Romero's most effective and interesting horror thrillers—not as profound as his remarkable Living Dead trilogy, but unusually gripping and provocative. Read full review

The first test of a horror movie comes not the morning after but in the midst of the onslaught. By these standards, Monkey Shines is a white-knuckle triumph. Romero's film has its lurid, nonsensical lapses, but it touches some deep nerves. It's as unsettling as anything he's done. [08 Aug 1988, p.66]

This is Romero at his best - a set-piece of sustained chills all precisely shot and rhythmically cut, good enough to make us forgive (if not forget) the cast that is merely competent, and an ending that is downright tepid. But even at half-throttle, Romero can quicken the pulse. Worse than it could have been, Monkey Shines is still better than most. [29 July 1988]

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. Read full review

For Romero fans, Monkey Shines may lack the graphic punch of his earlier work, but it's still a crafty piece of entertainment. [29 July 1988, p.C5]

Claustrophobic, gripping, and incredibly intense throughout, Monkey Shines is an extremely complicated emotional drama that taps into the dark side of family ties, friendship, dependency, nurturing, and love. Read full review

Mr. Romero, who adapted the screenplay from Michael Stewart's novel, wraps up more loose ends than anyone cares about, yet leaves some nagging bits of illogic. Read full review

Monkey Shines is a befuddled story about a man constrained from the neck down told by a director confused from the neck up.

Monkey Shines is just humdrum theater fodder that exploits the problems of quadriplegics for a cheap buzz of fear that it can't even deliver. This movie could make the apes sorry that we're related. [29 July 1988, p.9]