Moving away from the apocalyptic horror of his 'Living Dead' trilogy, Romero reaffirms his equal aptitude for controlled chills, previously evident in Martin. P

The genre maestro’s 1998 horror Monkey Shines was dubbed ‘An Experiment In Fear’ – and with good reason.

Despite a hokey prologue and ending (the latter imposed by producer Charles Evans), this 1988 feature is one of George Romero’s most effective and interesting horror thrillers—not as profound as his remarkable “Living Dead” trilogy, but unusually gripping and provocative. Based on Michael Stewart’s novel of the same title, the plot concerns Allan (Jason Beghe), […]

`Monkey Shines” opens with a textbook illustration of the Perfect Day Theory, which teaches that when a movie opens with a glorious depiction of a perfect day in the life of the hero, the joy is always a prelude to tragedy. In this case, Allan, the hero, goes jogging, is struck by a truck and awakens as a quadriplegic.

Staging a fight between a grouchy quadriplegic and a murderous monkey isn’t, in theory, a bad idea. George A. Romero’s Monkey Shines, however, is so clumsy that its climactic fight between wheelchair-bound Allan (Jason Beghe) and helper monkey Ella is...

Read the Empire Movie review of Monkey Shines. Getting the best out of a middling novel, Romero finds new, less gruesome avenues for his...