El eslabón sangriento

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.

Is it beyond the realm of possibility that there may be more than one Robert Young? You are correct in the fact that Robert Young is not listed in the cast - however, he is the director of the film. No, Robert Young did not come back from the dead to direct it, there are actually 18 Robert Young's listed in IMDb. I do have to say that this review section proved to be more exciting than the film. xminusone, please , before railing somebody else's opinion, do your due diligence by at least reading some of the credits first. Nice review Richard! Keep up the good work. F Murray Abraham's performance is well done, but that is to be expected. I have to agree that this film seems to be one step above the usual Sci Fi junk (ie anything starring Lorenzo Lamas).

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.