Shakma

Hugh Parks & Tom Logan – 1990 – USA

Really cruddy horror film of the crazed-science-monkey subgenre that was briefly a thing in the 80s - e.g. Richard Franklin's Link (1986), George A. Romero's Monkey Shines (1988), etc.  Not even the presence of Roddy McDowell can lend this mess any class.  He plays a scientist who is using a baboon (named 'Shakma') to test some kind of serum that is supposed to control aggression.  Needless to say, it doesn't work and Shakma is plenty mad now.  The "plot" has McDowell also running some sort of role-playing game in a hospital after hours, probably for no other reason than because it's an easy way for the screenwriters to justify having a handful of college students around to get killed off one by one.  With superhuman strength, Shakma attacks them all and claws them to death in sloppily shot scenes that don't really let you see anything; you just basically get the idea that some violence is happening.  That poor baboon; I can't help thinking about what must've crossed his mind as he was being corralled, caged, poked and prodded to "act" enraged in shot after shot; "What the hell are these big hairless apes making me do this for?  It must be awfully important."  Deep into his career decline at this point, D-lister Christopher Atkins looks too old and too flighty to be plausible as a medical student, and unfortunately he's the most plausible thing in the movie.  And yes, it took two directors to make this masterpiece.