Students at the horrible monkey vivisection lab are all set for an after-hours game of live action D&D inside the facility. Real Hamadryas baboon Shakma gets loose. IT HATES THEM.

hey cool
Well the baboon of course. Genuine enraged red-butted goddam baboon!
but YUCK
Quit shutting the doors on it. Can't they see it
wants in?

Hell yeah SHAKMA is finally on Netflix! I get to see SHAKMA again! SHHHAKMA! That's what you name your killer monkey George A Romero with your Ella. I don't even know what kind of sick fuck could watch this amazing trailer and not have to see SHAKMAAAA! I'm gonna use up a year's supply of exclamation points here guys!

Live animal! Nothing you can put in a suit or make out of crepe hair or draw on a computer can ever match a real live monster, and baboons in particular must surely be the most horrid of all God's creatures. I've heard people complain that they used a Hamadryas instead of a big Chacma baboon for this, especially since it's named Shakma and all, but wrong again other reviewers; only the Hamadryas has the giant puffball mane and cherry-red arse you need flying across the screen.

The performer playing Shamka is appropriately named Typhoon, and so-called advanced hominids could learn a thing or two from him about acting. Shakma enters every scene like he's been shot out of a cannon, literally ricocheting off the walls and claiming absolute male ape dominance, like "get outta MY SHOT cutesy Brooke Shields guy, I'm SHAKMA!".

Sorry I get all worked up during this movie and talk for the baboon. Ooooh look at its horrible little red man face. It gets this look like "What the...what did you call me?! I'll kill you". And the great thing about having a baboon as your monster is not only are baboons genuinely scary, they're also ridiculous. I mean no way can that be a real animal, and yet there it is incongruously existing in the world. It's like a puppet monster they'd make for something like Gremlins or Critters that really came to life. There's a li'l more dangling monkey ween than I normally like to see, but even that only makes it all the more really horrible. Guys there's a real monster in this movie!

And yes, that does come with certain limitations. They can't let a real baboon attack the actors or it would be the greatest film of all time, so mostly it's people hiding behind doors while Shakma propels himself against them with absolutely shuddering, jarring, unsettling velocity. But it's okay because a real baboon attack, even against a door, is still better than any CG snagglewampus pretending to attack a stunt man. I mean did you see what it did to those doors? Imagine if that door were a person!

I'll admit though that the actual kills of people who couldn't find a door fast enough were mostly pretty weak. One was even just a bloodless split second jump cut of a launched monkey. They did stage one full contact fake baboon kill though, and I have to say they completely pulled it off. I think my brain was so primed from all the Shakma-on-door violence that it accepted the surrogate puppet baboon without a second thought. It also set up the movie's beautiful money shot right here:


If only she were near a d...nevermind.

Folks actually bitch about the plot and characters here, like I care about people doing stuff when I could be watching a coked-up baboon flying around wrecking everything. Okay, yeah, fine, sure, it's not strictly speaking a "good" movie, but what if Leprechaun 6 had a real live homocidal leprechaun in it? You'd damn well watch I guarantee, and it would be amazing even if all it did was count its gold for 90 minutes.

But there are people talking and such in the movie if you gotta care. They're playing some kind of game, like a live version of one of those really shitty Atari games that came out near the end and ran it into the ground. The always outstanding Roddy McDowell's there as the monkey lobotomist, George A Romero , with your non character actor playing a monkey scientist. {space reserved for future link to Monkey Shines} There's also this creep bearded guy who delivers every line like he's telling a filthy joke to a kid. Not sure what he or the director were going for there, but WHOOSH! SHAKMA! What I actually liked about the characters is...spoiler alert here if you care who dies...ones die who you don't think will die. Like the smart girlfriend has final girl written all over her, but SLAM! SHAKMA! And that poor nice girl in the princess outfit who has a crush on Mr Handsome there, that character would never be killed in a movie. ZOOM! SHAKMA!

But yeah when monkey die, everybody cry. The ending's dark enough that I actually don't hate it though. Somehow I didn't even hate Christopher Atkins too much there. Normally a guy with a face that cute just makes me want to stop him riding in the big motorcycle race, but he had a pretty bad day in this movie so I could even kind of relate a little. And he's dead. Yeah he's kind of still moving a little there but I don't think he's gettin' back up. I'm saying Shakma definitely took him out. Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to go walk around the house saying SHAKMA! for a while until I settle down.