Oh. MONKEY SHINES.

In California, money doesn’t grow on trees. Unfortunately, neither does gas or horror movies, which really makes me wonder why so many people come out here. After yesterday’s day-long expenditure of funds, I realized that I was just one day away from October 1st, which, if it was a movie starring Tom Cruise, would be called O:1, and I still didn’t have a movie to review or enough money for gas to go rent one. Grabbing the remote, I fell back on my only option: your Earth “cable.” Beggars can’t be choosers, and I’ve never thought of myself as either, but I still had to settle on whatever movie Satan and his minions of Halloween Horror Demons felt like dealing. I definitely got the “Asshole” hand with all the 3s.

Since this intro is shaping up to be longer than most of the actual reviews I write, I’m gonna quit pussyfooting and get down to what really brings the boys to the yard. The only movie on TV was Monkey Shines. You know the Shocktober rules: I’m only allowed to review movies I’ve never seen before. Which means Showtime couldn’t have picked a better movie.

Monkey Shines has a VERY creepy movie poster, which cleverly plays off of America's fear of cymbals. But that's it. It’s very hard not to be prejudice against a movie that’s about a killer monkey. When that same movie shows you male nudity in its first 10 seconds, it’s like a gay black midget taking the nuts out of his mouth just long enough to heckle an Alabama civil war reenactment. But the Shocktober Spectacular review committee is fair and just. In fact, Monkey Shines took a turn for the better when it took something that would normally suck—getting hit by a truck—and made it look ABSOLUTELY HILARIOUS.

Monkey Shines is about a quadrapalegic man who is assigned a monkey to help him perform his daily functions, which is why I hope I never become quadrapalegic. I can think of at least 10 things I do daily that I’d hate to have to rely on a monkey to help me perform. What the quadrpalegic didn’t know was that his particular monkey was, in a past life…a lab monkey. It spent months being injected with a serum made out of human brains, which made it smarter, which I thought was interesting. Is that how things work? If it would’ve been injected with bicep, would it have gotten stronger? If it would’ve eaten kidney, could it have held its liquor better? I’m gonna call bullshit on this theory because I know a guy who spent a few months in jail, and he doesn’t smell any worse at all, even though I’m sure he ate his share of…never mind. Just you never mind.

So anyway, the monkey develops some sort of a mind connection with Quad City DJ, which he uses to do 90 minutes of things that weren’t in the least bit scary. The monkey only kills two people, and both of those deaths are off-screen. And in the first movie of the Spectacular, nonetheless. Here I am at the World Series, and I’ve got my worst batter hitting leadoff. This movie was whack-tacular. I know we’ve been rubbing shampoo in rabbit’s eyes for years, but damn it, this movie should spawn at least five special interest groups protesting animal’s cruelty against us.

On a side note, this movie’s subtitle was, seriously: an experiment in fear, which are both the raddest and least true words to ever be used to describe a movie about an evil monkey.

Monkey Shines gets ONE out of five Jason heads just for showing up, because the Shocktober Spectacular is a lot like the Special Olympics. Everyone who finishes the race gets a hug, no matter what place they come in.

For Tuesday: Twenty years before the Sith were getting their revenge, Marley was getting his. Tomorrow, I’ll be getting mine.