Im Schatten des Kilimandscharo

A ridiculous story of a drought in Africa which results in 90,000 baboons deciding to attack humans as their only way of getting food. Yes, that's right, 90,000 red-assed baboons munch their way through the cast during this silly 97 minute horror flick. There's a fair bit of needless gore, which doesn't help, and lots of build ups which peter out without delivering an exciting or frightening pay-off. The only decent thing about this movie is John Rhys-Davies (who was so great in Raiders of the Lost Ark), who injects a bit of interest in a somewhat underwritten role.

We've certainly seen our share of killer primate movies. From 'Monkey Shines: An Experiment in fear' to 'Link', 'Shakma' and 'In the Shadow of Kilimanjaro'. (I'm not mentioning 'Congo' and 'King Kong' here because they weren't real animals). 'In the Shadow of Kilimanjaro' is undoubtedly one of the most realistic and terrifying of all.

Based on fact, the film depicts the moment when thousands of baboons turned to humans as food substitute during a drought. Entirely filmed on location in Kenya, this adds to the realism of the movie (so sad to think 'filmed on location' will soon be a thing of the past with the ever-growing use of CGI...).

Timothy Bottoms stars as ranger Jack Ringtree, whose wife Lee (Irene Miracle) comes to visit him begging to come home. Her timing couldn't have been worse, as all hell is about to break loose. Nearby, a mining company run by Chris Tucker (John Rhys-Davies) encounters several problems while running out of contract time, but things are about to get much worse as the baboons descent on the small town.

The attack scenes are brutal, realistic and simply terrifying. The use of real baboons makes it all the more scarier and the suspense is nail-biting. This is the stuff nightmares are made of!

'In the Shadow of Kilimanjaro' is one of my all-time favourite and most memorable 80's horror films.

Would I watch it again? Absolutely!

My review was written in April 1986 after watching the film at a Times Square screening room.

Filmed over two years ago in Kenya, "In the Shadow of Kilimanjaro" is an old-fashioned adventure thriller in the borderline horror genre of a last-stand-at-the-house against predators, previously essayed in such films as "Kingdom of the Spiders", "Savage Harvest" and "Roar". Box office outlook is weak.

A famine has caused the 90,000 baboons on a Kenya wildlife reservation to begin banding together an preying on humans (film claims on-screen to be base on a true story, but the 1984 date given is impossible). Wildlife ranger John (Jack to his friends) Ringtree -played by Timothy Bottoms, wants to evacuate the area of about 200 people but the government and manager of the local mine Chris Tucker (John Rhys-Davies) view him as an alarmist and oppose his efforts. As usual in corny horror films like this one, the cast (especially female) is given to wandering alone in the bush long after word of animal attacks has been announced, making them easy prey.

Eventually the danger comes close to home and all survivors huddle together in a hotel run by Michele Carey. The last stand against the marauding animals is successful and a convenient rainstorm spells the end of the drought and the problem.

Hokey film benefits from atmospheric location photography, but suffers from sometimes inaudible dialog recorded in direct sound. Rhys-Davies uses a prop-cigar and a new accent in a fun job as a villain, but by the final reels he has become a true-blue good guy, with only the baboons as hissable targets. Bottoms is merely okay as the bland hero, Irene Miracle is extremely glamorous as his "please come home with met to America" nagging wife (in a role reserved decades ago in these films for Elsa Martinelli) and it's fun to see 1960s starlet Michele Carey again, as the friendly neighborhood hotelier. Leonard Trolley is so hammy as an old British colonial type recalling the good old days that one wishes he had been fed to the baboons early on.

Director Raju Patel substitutes gore effects for suspense in an episodic presentation that fails to knit individual scenes together. Unconvincing matte shots are used to show hundreds of baboons storming down from the hills, while more manageable stagings of a dozen or o animals are used to enact the attacks on humans. Situation inevitably conjures up memories of Cy Endfield's minor 1965 classic "Sands of the Kalahari", but instead of that film's genuinely chilling climax of the baboons descending in long shot on the surviving protagonist (which left the horror to one's imagination), we now get severed limbs, half-eaten faces and torsos and other ineffective gimmicks.

Michele returned to Hollywood for one final appearance after a short hiatus to raise her son as he was a high school student at the time of the films production.

Michele was excited to travel to Kenya for the filming but was disappointed with its final presentation.

Michele officially retired from acting within days of returning to her home in California.

Michele passed away on November 21st, 2018 at the age of 75 having never returned to her acting career.

"In The Shadow of Kilimanjaro" has a lot of good things going for it. The story, like every script that is based on true events, has some facts embellished but is convincing and flows well. The basic premise is that in Kenya in 1984, there was this "perfect storm" of events that lead to a terrifying spectacle. A severe drought killed off much of the vegetation and small animals in the country. What it didn't kill were thousands of baboons, which eventually turned into hungry mobs, devouring anything in their path, including humans.

The animal training and the shots of wildlife are really amazing, lending a lot of credibility to the story. There are literally hundreds of animals on the screen and you think to yourself that the shots of these apes all running in one direction must have been stock footage or computer effects but no. There was extensive work when the film was made to train all of these animals to perform for some key scenes in the movie that are quite impressive.

The film almost plays like a zombie film, with hordes of man-eating creatures who can't be reasoned with just waiting for the time to strike and in that aspect the film can be quite effective. Where it doesn't quite work is that the film doesn't go far enough into the horror genre, with many shots of potentially shocking attacks being abruptly cut. This might have been done for budgetary reasons, but nonetheless they leave you wanting so much more than they deliver. The ending also comes very abruptly and isn't quite as satisfying as it should be. The film is nevertheless quite good and if you're a fan of zombie films, this is one of those stories that didn't want to be a variation on the genre, but ended up being on. If you've ever wanted to see a good animal-based horror story, look no further. (On VHS, October 5, 2012)