Monkey Shines (1988) dir. George Romero, Orion Pictures
So we end this year's countdown with a film from the master himself, George Romero. Romero + monkeys. What would the end result be?
Allan Mann (Jason Beghe) has everything going right for him. He's a top law student and athlete with nothing but wine and roses in his future, at least until he gets hit by a truck. Dr. Wiseman (Stanley Tucci) does his best and Allan pulls through, albeit without the use of his limbs.
Allan isn't handling this very well, especially when his girlfriend Linda (Janine Turner) dumps him for the doc. Allan's best friend Geoffrey Fisher (John Pankow), however, has some good news. He's been experimenting with monkeys, mostly by injecting human brain tissue in them. One subject, Ella (Frank Welker's voice) shows so much promise that Fisher decides to give Ella to Allan as a helper monkey.
Things go smoothly at first. Ella helps Allan out around the house but as time goes by Ella goes from merely empathic to acting out Allan's unconscious desires and anger. His nurse, Maryanne (Christine Forrest) is rather uncaring for someone in the medical profession, plus her habit of letting her pet bird fly around the house is a bit rude. So Ella kills the bird.
Maryanne freaks out and blames Allan, even though he's not physically capable of even performing the deed. Allan later learns that his condition might be reversible. He's both happy and even angrier at Wiseman. So Ella takes some matches, finds Wiseman and Linda little love shack and burns it down with the lovers inside.
At this point even Allan is getting freaked out. Geoffrey and even his specialist Melanie (Kate McNeil) think he's being silly, but Geoffrey agrees to take Ella back to the lab. Ella escapes...and she's not happy.
Ridiculous and scary in equal measure; one could also see some symbolism if one wants to read into that.
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