by: Dr. Boogie

Monkey Shines is a movie about a quadriplegic man whose helper monkey becomes clingy and murderous. Because of this, the movie is generally regarded as more thriller than horror. It's hard to be scared of a Capuchin monkey, no matter how smart it is, but all things considered, director George "Night of the Living Dead" Romero made a pretty good scary monkey movie. One that even included a few memorable scenes:

At the beginning of the film, Ella, the monkey who does the shining is just a normal lab monkey, but then researcher Geoffrey Fisher begins a very usual treatment: he starts injecting Ella with a serum made from "human memory cells". That's just fancy college talk for...

Frozen brain scrapings!

Granted, the brain in question looks like a chicken breast with wrinkles pressed into it, but that's not the point. The thing to note about all this is that these injections make Ella smarter than the average helper monkey, and that's great news for Geoffrey's newly-paralyzed friend, Alan. Alan and Ella start really bonding, but then Ella becomes smart enough to be jealous. Now, it's turning into a monkey version of Fatal Attraction.

The scene in question takes place at the very end of the film. Ella has been a bad monkey, and Alan, trapped in the monkey's clutches and fearing for his life and the lives of his friends, must do something. While Ella tries to set his girlfriend's hair on fire, Alan manages to twitch his paralyzed arm just enough to hit "Play" on his stereo. Ella loves the music, and Alan calls her over for a hug. A hug, and a little necking.

*crunch*

That twitch of his arm was all the movement Alan could manage from the neck down, so he gets desperate. Wanting to put an end to Ella's murderous spree, he bites down on the nape of her neck with enough force to draw blood, and then things really get brutal.

Alan thrashes Ella around like a dog with a chew toy. Suffice to say, that was the end of Ella's killing spree.

Be honest: how many of you came to this article thinking you would see a quadriplegic biting and shaking a monkey to death? All I can say is, "you're welcome."

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