Shakma (1990)
Directed by Hugh Parks, Tom Logan
Written by Roger Engle
Starring Christopher Atkins, Amanda Wyss, Roddy McDowell
Release Date October 5th, 1990
Box Office Unknown
Shakma has no right to be as entertaining as it is. This animal rampage horror movie, from the f*** around and find out tradition of horror films about man screwing with nature, manages to be wildly entertaining and modestly incompetent all at once. It's a weirdly delightful combination of low budget weirdness and inventive low budget filmmaking that manages to make a relatively unthreatening baboon into a mass murdering psycho beast through a combination of camera work, editing and terrible special effects.
Shaka stars the King of Bland handsomeness, Christopher Atkins, as Sam, a medical student and researcher. Sam has spent the past year training a baboon named Shakma to follow commands and not be as aggressive as his species tends to be. Unfortunately for Sam, his Professor, Professor Sorensen (Roddy McDowell), doesn't have the patience to see if aggressiveness can be trained out of a Baboon. Professor Sorensen instead proceeds with an experimental brain surgery. It's a 50/50 bet that either Shakma will become a docile, friendly pet Baboon or a wild-eyed, aggressive killer. If that seems like a bad bet, congratulations, that's what the movie is about.
No surprise, the surgery goes poorly and Shakma goes crazy, nearly killing a fellow student and rival of Sam, Richard (Greg Flowers). Sam is told to put Shakma down but he can't do it. Instead, he sedates his primate pal while expecting that Richard will throw his friend into the incinerator. Unfortunately for everyone, Richard is stopped by Professor Sorensen who wants to examine the corpse and instructs Richard not to cremate Shakma. This becomes important because the Med students are sticking around the school on this night to play a role playing game.
In a wildly elaborate game, Sam, Richard, Professor Sorensen, are joined by Bradley (Tre Laughlin), Gary (Rob Edward Morris), and Sam's love interest, Tracy (Amanda Wyss), in this fantasy game that has the students solving clues and following a path to the top floor where a Princess, Richard's younger sister, Kim (Amanda Myers), waits to be rescued. As the game gets underway, and the players go off on their quest, Shakma wakes up and goes on a bloody killing spree.
I'm almost embarrassed by how much I enjoyed Shakma. Most critics hated this film and they aren't wrong about its many, many flaws. Nevertheless, as the Baboon went about its rampage, I was having an absolute blast laughing at the foolish humans who keep wandering obliviously into danger. There is a wonderfully rich tradition of horror movies where man faces off with nature but most of those happen in nature. The medical school setting of Shakma is both a cover for a low budget shoot and a weirdly refreshing setting for a man vs nature horror story.
