Intense, gripping, stylish and poignant

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

Blood Monkey (2007)* 1/2 (out of 4)Yet another Creature Feature from the Sci-Fi Channel. This one here has six Americans going into the jungles of Africa where they meet up with Professor Hamilton (F. Murray Abraham). The Professor has been doing research on various monkeys and thinks he has discovered a location where extremely large ones live but soon when the group is on their land the creatures attack. The more of these films I watch the more certain I'm becoming that not much really changes from one to the next with the exception being whatever monster they decide to show. As usual we get the typical stereotypes going into the jungle and of course becoming victims. I don't mind these groups going to get slaughtered but I do wish that if the screenplay wants them to be smart and intelligent doctors or brain surgeons then the actors should at least make us believe these characters. As usual we got the idiots you'd expect to see in a film like this and of course they make one mistake after another and this eventually leads to their deaths. I think the biggest problem with this film is that it takes forever to get going. We get a pretty gory attack to start the film and then that's pretty much it for the next hour as we get to know our Americans as well as the doctor. We spend a hour getting to know them yet we really don't get to know anything about them because their "character development" is about as lame as some of the acting. It goes without saying but you really don't expect to see someone like Abraham in a movie like this but he appears to be giving it his all even though I'm sure he was just picking up a paycheck. I'll admit that seeing him come across this gory battlefield and just kicking body parts around made me laugh. The creature here is 100% CGI and looks terrible. I think a lot of people are going to be upset that the creature doesn't appear too often but then again, once you do see it you might want it to just stay away.

I watched BloodMonkey last night on the Sci-Fi Channel and was a wee bit surprised. From all I had read, this was a really, really bad movie and in many ways it wasn't all that great, but I really liked the strange ending. First let's look at what makes it a bad movie. It seems that in the decade of the 2000's one must have a group of young people, mixed male and female, mixed races makes it politically correct, so that is a good thing, if you are into that sort of thing. Now, these young people must be headed to a jungle, faraway island, or some other God forsaken place, where they have no business being in the first place. Now, the cast of characters must include the following: A quite, hero type male. A dizzy blonde female. A bookish dork type. A loud-mouth jock type. A quite, bookish, fairly good looking female who is hoping to hook up with the hero male. Some sort of adult leadership is generally thrown in, in the form of a Professor or other Phd type. This can be a male or female, but is most likely to be male. And throw in a native guide or some such and you have a movie crew. Matt Reeves plays Greg and he is the jock/dork/loud-mouth in BloodMonkey. I rooted for him to go as soon as possible. Ah, the blonde here is played by Laura Aikman as Sydney, who takes a make-up case and cell-phone into the deep jungle. The nerd is Josh, played by Sebastian Amesto, who all in all is not a nerdy as the nerds in other horror movies. Good job Sebastian. The girl with the camera is Danni, played by Frishia Bomambehead. She is the one to film their adventures in paradise or is it hell? You judge. The bookish, quite girl is Amy, played by Amy Manson. She is a jewel in this movie. Just cute enough and smart. Ah, now to our hero, cool guy, and all around leader. Seth is his name and he is played by Matt Ryan. Does a good job with what he has to work with. The semi-adult leader is Professor Hamilton played by F. Murray Abraham, who is an outstanding actor in his own right and must have been bored when he took the job as the "I have a screw loose Professor." The show stealer is Chenna played by Prapimporn Kamchanda. Doesn't talk much and does a great job as the Professor's sidekick and ass kicker in general. Bad to the bone and cute as well, what more could you ask for. Sorry, but I am partial to the Asian ladies. BloodMonkey was filmed in Krabi, Thailand and the scenery is beautiful and that is a good thing. I have given you the basic storyline without revealing too much and if you are a fan of this genre, then you will have seen this basic layout before. I found it to be fun on a boring Saturday night and the only thing missing was the gals swimming in a river sans bathing suits. I really liked the ending. Found it to be a bit of a shocker and really wasn't expecting it, so it helped to make the whole thing worthwhile. I give it 5 out of 10 stars.

Almost every aspect of this movie could be better, but overall its worth a horror movie one- time watch. Scary enough for some to keep you at least riveted throughout. Shot entirely in the bush in Thailand, its gives you a real feel for the environment as you are not frequently whisked away by some annoying sub-plot, or worse, the dreaded above-all-else, behind-the-scenes plot.The cast / acting is actually very good IMO, however the written plot did not do the actors justice. They often make decisions that real individuals would not, could not, conceivably do, and they are the decisions that drive the entire course of the film. But alas, that is horror. People make ghastly decisions and get killed for it.Watch this movie once, you won't be too disappointed.

1. Look up whatever's next on Sci-Fi. (I use Zap2It, YMMV, it really doesn't matter.) 2. If it's not Stargate, and it is a movie, copy the title. If it's Stargate, or another TV program (not a movie), look down the schedule for the next movie and copy its title.3. Go to IMDb and paste the aforementioned movie title into the search box (assuming you're too lazy to just type it. This also eliminates typos.)4. (Maybe) pick the appropriate entry from a disambiguation list.5. Scroll down to the bottom of the page where the review is, and hit the link that says: "More".6. Presto. (No, slashdotters, there's no 'profit' step here. Move along.) Really. Every movie I see on Sci-Fi is worse than the one before. In one, it's man-eating baboons. In this, it's man-eating - well, I'd say from the title monkeys, but it really could be just about anything, 'cause the production was _so_ cheap that we never got a decent look at it/them! Oh, no, wait! There, we got _one_ good look, in the final second. OK. It _is_ a monkey. A big one.Let's see if I can be more specific: the characters are a bunch of squealing twits whom we're glad to see die, the story is so formulaic it should have never been filmed, the cinematography is as bad and the special effects are about nonexistent. I mean one of the main ingredients of a creature feature is a creature, _some_ creature, preferably something scary. This is absent.There. That's it.Stupidest. Movie. Ever.In fairness, there was _one_ good line: "My rappelling harness is riding up into... uh, someplace it _shouldn't_!"I swear, they oughta call it the "Stupidity, Horror, and Sci-Fi Channel", because that's the order of their priorities.PLEASE! CAN'T _SOMEONE_ MAKE THEM STOP?!*** READ NO FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANNA SEE SPOILERS!!! YOU'VE BEEN WARNED! *** It's apparently a gorilla with a brain far larger than a human's. Which means _nothing_, lots of animals have larger brains than people, it's brain / body size ratio that matters. Just one more technical detail they messed up. But this big brain supposedly makes it so smart that it easily hunts down and slaughters a pack of anthropology students. If it were _really_ so smart, it would have quit this stupid picture early on, much like the ape-man in MAD Magazine's parody of "2001". (Well, I guess that dates _me_, doesn't it?) In this case, slaughtering the students is no big thing, as they're all so ineffective that all they can do is scream a lot. In fairness to the script, it would be easy to suppose that this batch has been hand-picked by their Mad Professor as bait for a hunting expedition. The hunter, however, fares no better than the bait, despite being armed with a Kalashnikov. Neither does the Professor himself.Amusing goofs: Rappelling is about the easiest and funnest thing you can do in the mountains, other than, perhaps, sex with yer fellow hikers. Control is a no-brainer, and it's just not that scary. It's the climb _back_up_ that's a bummer.When yer tent gets peed on by something with a stream the size of a garden hose, it's gonna be immediately obvious that it's _not_ rain, and it's _not_ somebody's filthy bandage on their sprained ankle, either.When both sides of someone's chest are punctured, either from Kalashnikov fire or multiple wooden stakes, both lungs deflate and the subject does _not_ scream or talk. All they can do is die.