El eslabón sangriento

To be honest I wasn't expecting much from the production values or the story, but was expecting an actor of F Murray Abraham's calibre to maintain some interest. And actually, while the character and writing is beneath him( we are here talking about someone who in Amadeus gave one of the finest male performances I have seen on film), Abraham is by far the best thing about Blood Monkey, he does deserve credit for bringing some dignity to his performance. The other actors don't match him however, pretty-looking of course but they don't do anything beyond that, even being genuinely concerned about what was happening. They are not helped by their characters, which are not just stereotypical but made to do annoying things that you don't care for them one bit. The dialogue is very cheesy, while the story is increasingly dull and repetitive. The gore is minimal and pretty fake in look with the scenes they feature in unscary and suspense-less, while the effects are terrible and further cheapened by some of the most unfocused camera work and editing of any movies of this genre. Overall, other than Abraham Blood Monkey was an ugly, repetitive, annoying and very un-atmospheric mess. 2/10 Bethany Cox

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).

Most creature features recently had the same problem: extensively showing creatures that look computer generated from a mile. In that respect, 'Blood Monkey' is much better, because it doesn't show the monkeys through 95 pct of the running time. Suspense is created successfully, because the characters only know something is lurking in the jungle, but they have no idea how dangerous it actually is. This is closer to the 1940s horror movie style than the current gore-in-your-face flicks which leave nothing to imagination. I also liked the location in Thailand, it provides a convincing background.

On the other hand, the movie has serious flaws. To name a few: the video camera thing, one actor filming the others, which has been done to death in the past decade. Story logic - for example, why do they go hunting with only one huntress and one gun, I'd have armed myself to the teeth if I were in the professor's place? Briefly, there is some irrational behaviour to the point it's sometimes annoying, such as the students buying cheap excuses, and some of the young actors appear to be quite amateurish, anyway, but I realise it is a tough job for them to play next to an F M Abraham.

To sum it up, the movie was not extraordinary, but at least better than I expected from the other reviews around here, and more interesting than various recently released shark, crocodile or piranha flicks. I voted 5/10.

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.

I don't think I can say enough words about how bad this movie is. I don't usually rate bad movies because I feel bad for the crew. But this movie is a exception. It's like they didn't even care. Bad graphics, bad acting, bad story, bad screenplay, and just felt so fake. Worst movie I have ever seen!