Bloodmonkey

This film is directed by the Hammer Horror and British television veteran director Robert Young, not the actor, so the facts are right if you check thoroughly enough. As such, poor film or not, I say that we should be glad that those who provided top class efforts in their youth (and ours) are still working, albeit not in the classy productions that they might wish. I'd sooner Robert Young directed this than not direct at all. I have happy memories of 'Vampire Circus' and 'Charlie Boy' from the dear old Hammer House and I have plenty of good things to say about the TV shows the guy directed, including Minder, GBH and Jeeves and Wooster. Okay, so this is typical exploitation crap, but it is an item of interest through its director's heritage.

It is a poor film, but it can be watched - more either while away the time, or as an example of how not to do things. Mr F is the only watchable actor, but his efforts are barely worth the film that it is in. Who puts good wine into a mug??? The film lacks tension - and as such it is not a 'whole film' - the lighting, music, atmosphere, do not co-conspire to create a tense environment - there is no 'mood' to the film which keeps the viewers locked in.

I also felt it quite blatantly stole from other films - 'Blair witch' and 'The Descent' in particular - most clearly toward the end, when the film decides it is obviously bored of its current direction and wishes to go off elsewhere following the lead of other, better films.

The young student actors are all pretty - (which is somewhat surprising since they are supposed to be anthropology student...) and none really leave a lasting impression aside from their good looks.

This was clearly a low budget film, with the monsters staying out of eye-sight until the end of the film (which could well have been a good move considering the paltry CGI employed).

A movie called Bloodmonkey (or Blood Monkey as it is written on my dvd copy) sounds like a schlocky, terrible, but ultimately entertaining attempt at creature feature. Throw in F. Murray Abraham trying his hardest to look like Fidel Castro, the guy who played Constantine on TV, and some terrible special effects, and you have the perfect Best of the Worst type of film.

Instead, we get an hour and 20 minutes of almost nothing, followed by 6 minutes of something, and 5 seconds of the actual 'Blood Monkey', which looks like a 5th grader used an online animation program to make King Kong, and believe it or not, those 5 seconds are the only moments we actually see the titular creature.

A couple of laughs were had, I will admit. This is filled with some terrible dialogue and editing choices, including a scene that I think they just forgot to record sound effects for, some dropped audio, and even a couple of blank frames. I spent a dollar on this since the title was funny and the cast was interesting, and if you can sit through terrible characters and sub-amateur filmmaking, you might enjoy this. If not, you'll likely end up like me; disappointed.

On a scale of "Good" -> "Bad" -> "So bad it's good", I have to rate this waste of digital video tape as "A Waste of Digital Video Tape".

"Blood Monkey" lacks two things: Blood, and a Monkey. It has one Name, and a bunch of waiter-slash-actors doing the biggest and best movie they'll ever be in.

And that's two truly sad things. One: that there are people in Hollywood who are desperate enough to be cast in a Waste of Digital Video Tape like this, and two: that there's apparently nobody better available. I jest not - every "actor" in this piece should be wearing a name tag, because it's otherwise impossible to remember who they are from one cut to the next. It's a positive relief when they are mercifully dispatched by the makeup department, and a shame that they're not put out of our misery sooner.

Everything about this disaster is amateur hour. Script, cinematography, editing, score, everything. Nobody working on it gave a Goddamn about this movie. The utter contempt for the viewer just spurts out of the screen in every scene.

Don't watch this, no matter how bored you are. Watch anything - except the Star Wars Holiday Special - instead of this. Yes, anything, including Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park. That's how bad we're talking.

And if you rate this higher than a 1? God have mercy on your soul, because no mortal will.

F. Murray Abraham pays the rent by lending his Oscar winning credibility to this routine creature feature. As a mad scientist type he joins an obligatory ensemble of bickering students as they wander around a forest in Thailand until its time for the creature to turn up. Its all very by-the-numbers and elderly film and TV veteran Robert Young keeps the quality reasonably high considering the limitations. Fans of the genre (a mainstay of the Sci-Fi Channel) will know what to expect, though this is of higher quality than many similar productions, but thats not saying much when a film displays not a single novel trait.