Leofwine_draca
BLOOD MONKEY is yet another poor effort from the Sci-Fi Channel. I'm tired of watching all these crappy movies, but something propels me on – maybe I'm hoping to find another like the ONE decent effort I saw, which was AZTEC REX. BLOOD MONKEY isn't it; it's another film that's been made in the Thai jungle which is the sole redeeming feature of the production. Otherwise we're in extremely familiar territory as a group of youths are whittled down, one by one, by a mysterious, unseen killer in the jungle.This film borrows heavily from the whole BLAIR WITCH PROJECT idea of using hand-held camera footage to enhance the immediacy of the horror. The problem is, this idea has literally been done to death now, so the twist ending isn't shocking but a rip-off and the hand held footage is just an over-laboured bore. The cast of nobodies are uniformly bad and don't get me started on the technical aspects; it's amateur night all around. F. Murray Abraham follows the tradition of once-great actors dragging their reputations through the mud and the monster is seen exactly once, in a single split second CGI shot at the end, where we find out it isn't a monkey at all but an ape. The scene in which the monkeys are urinating over the tents is one of the worst imaginable and even the gore effects amount to a single, albeit effective, makeup job. The rest is just noise and inanity, signifying nothing.
elliott78212
Matt Ryan star of the new Constantine TV series and F. Murray Abraham in a SyFy creature of the week while this has some better production values, well known TV director and an Oscar winning actor it also has a not so great script several poorly talented actors but to my surprise watched start to finish its a little slow getting started , passable entertainment for a late night or rainy day. When compared to some of the more recent films on SyFy its better than many. Shot on location in Thailand not some cheesy set or awful CGI. Average acting, so so storytelling, same goes for direction, beautiful jungle location, lacking suspense or many scares but better than watching wallpaper dry.
TheLittleSongbird
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
Si_m007
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).
AD
