The story: Six stereotypical college students (the hottie, the jock, the nerd, the sensitive ones, etc.) are venturing to an African jungle to meet up with Professor Hamilton to study various plants and animals. Upon arrival, the students begin to notice something peculiar is going on and that the Professor isn't being completely upfront with everyone. When the students quickly discover the Professor is using them as bait for a vicious new type of monkey, they begin to fear for their lives. Will anyone be able to make it out of the jungle alive?

You would think "Blood Monkey" would at least be a "so bad it's good" horror adventure, but sadly that's not the case. The first 70 minutes are completely uninvolving and are filled with shots of endless walking. At one point, a character even exclaims, "we're in the jungle!" in case the viewer forgot. It's not until the last 20 minutes that the film becomes watchable. There are unintentionally hilarious scenes of a monkey urinating on a tent (it's clearly a hose spraying the tent), a character whining "Why did you shoot me! Ow, it hurts!", and there's even a death scene in which the character continues to move even after he's dead! Was anyone involved in this production even trying?

As for the killer monkey himself, it's simply nothing more than a blink and you'll miss it CGI gorilla. Most of the time, we only see the monkey's red eye point of view. Ooo, scary!

The most depressing aspect of "Blood Monkey" isn't that the film was somehow funded, but that the respected award winning actor F. Murray Abraham (of "Amadeus" fame) lowered himself to star in this. Granted, Abraham has appeared in crummy horror films like "Mimic" before, but that was at least directed by the talented Guillermo del Toro. "Blood Monkey" doesn't have any notable talent other than Abraham. But, as the saying goes, perhaps he gotta eat.

Note: The cover contains images of skulls on sticks and smaller monkeys, neither of which appear in the film. False advertising strikes again!

The DVD

Video:
The fullscreen picture quality is fairly standard for a low budget horror flick. The daytime scenes are passable, while the nighttime scenes tend to be grainy.

Sound: The Dolby Digital Stereo track is rather lackluster. The dialogue sounds monotone and the sound effects (such as a crackling fire or a gun being toyed with) are incredibly loud and distracting.

Extras: Not even a lousy trailer has been included.

Final Thoughts:
"Blood Monkey" is a typically bad killer-animal movie. I'm kind of glad the writer's strike is about to take place so audiences can be spared of seeing empty-headed disposable junk like this. Skip it.

Film and television enthusiast Nick Lyons recently had his first book published titled "Attack of the Sci-Fi Trivia." It is available on Amazon.com.