By Geno McGahee
I enjoy movies about animals attacking, for the most part. So, when I saw the artwork for a crazy baboon horror movie, I had to check it out. SHAKMA is about a baboon of the same name that has been tinkered with at a medical research facility and is now loose and causing trouble.
On top of doing research on monkeys, Professor Sorenson (Roddy McDowall), holds a Dungeons and Dragons sort of game in the research building for his students. The winner will get $1500, but with a crazed baboon on the loose, getting the money will be the last thing on their mind.
Sam (Christopher Atkins) is largely responsible for Shakma. He was supposed to put him down, but he didn’t. He is the star pupil of Sorenson and has a thing for Tracy, played by Amanda Wyss. She was Tina in the original NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET and she is a very likable actress. She can do the pained expression well and the panicked expression too. She can also do the “oh fuck, there’s a crazy baboon” look like no other. Sadly, (spoiler), she’s 0-2 in horror movies after this one.
The baboon goes completely ape shit as the movie goes on and it soon comes down to a game of survival as the strange would-be hero, Sam, can’t seem to help anybody. He yells a lot and abandons the women of the movie as he does things that really don’t help the matters. When Tracy is holding the door, Sam grabs the dead body of Sorenson and drags it away. He then sends Tracy out to distract Shakma and that leads to her death.
In a moment of truth, Sam says to himself that “I caused this” and goes head to head with the baboon in a brutal and bloody climax. It’s too bad that everyone had to die before Sam could figure out how to kill the monkey.
After watching this, I couldn’t help but to feel sorry for the janitor. The baboon shat on the floor, there was blood everywhere and everything was knocked over. It’s bad enough that they pay the guy 8 bucks an hour, but now he has to clean up after those D&D geeks? What a pain in the ass job that is.
SHAKMA is OK. It’s pretty forgettable but watchable. It’s the best D&D baboon horror movie of 1990 for sure, but considering that there weren’t too many, it’s not that impressive. I reluctantly recommend it.
Rating: 5/10