Nato – Monkey Shines
Even though Remy is about to pay respect to the zombie Godfather George A. Romero, I’ve got to show a little love first with my pick of Monkey Shines. Haven’t heard of it? Ha, oh it’s a fun little beast for sure.
Allan is a quadriplegic who starts to lose faith in life until he meets a monkey named Ella who is trained to care for him like a little hairy housekeeper. Fetching things and carrying out human acts like Allan once could, the man starts to create a bond with the monkey, but little does he know their bond is also being strengthened by science. Due to some genetic fiddling, Ella starts carrying out some of Allan’s more hidden and repressed emotions of anger and frustration, and people start getting hurt. Yup, a quadriplegic and his murderous monkey, how is that not gold?
I would like to see a tonal shit for a remake though. Keep the horror, sure, but it’s an adorable little simian doing the slashing. Why can’t we spin some dark comedy into the mix, something more cartoonish and silly than what Romero aimed for? Give me a funny man to play the quadriplegic, ham up the script with some good monkey related humor, and that would be a remake I’d pay to see in a heartbeat.