SHAKMA (Logan / Parks, 1990)

SHAKMA

Dir. Tom Logan / Hugh Parks, 1990

USA/UK, 101 minutes.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 13 – MIDNIGHT

“The world’s angriest primate just got mad!”

What better time than midnight for a failed experiment? Moments after using a power drill to graft a microchip onto a baboon’s heart, it’s Friday – and so a plucky group of horny and misguided researchers decide to go after-hours LARPing in the lab. Trouble is, the baboon’s heart has been flooded with steroidal enyzmes, and he’s out for revenge!

Leading a sundry cast of lowercase-E expendables, Roddy McDowell lends simian blessings to a guesome, hardheaded terror-romp equal bits “man vs. nature” and haunted house. But the real star is the indestructible Shakma, played by a small company of real (and presumably authentically angry) baboons. Trailer by Paul Baisley.