Shakma (1990) User Reviews

A killer baboon with a bad attitude.

[insomniac_rod · 6/10 · 23 September 2006]

Where is the love for Shakma? This is an entertaining, mindless cheesy Horror flick that came in the decline of a genre.

The movie is about a killer baboon. How could someone not like it? It's cheesy as hell and unintentionally funny but still it delivers expectations. I'm glad I rented this on VHS because I had a great moment. I laughed, cringed, and applauded for Shakma! The lead characters had great chemistry between each other. Wyss on her hottest form, Atkins, and the always fantastic Roddy McDowall were great on their roles. But keep in mind that Shakma is the real star of the movie. Our killer baboon made the entire movie watchable.

Rent this not so bad piece of 80's Horror trash and have a good time. Remember to keep your brain out of this. You won't need it.

Overrated

[Tikkin · 4/10 · 9 November 2006]

I'm unsure why there's so much praise for this film because Shakma is really quite boring throughout. The whole storyline about "the game" is very dull and the only thing I was hoping would make it interesting was the killer baboon himself. There's a few decent scenes scattered about, but not nearly enough to call this a cult classic or even close to a cult classic. The scene where the woman gets killed in the toilet seemed very well shot at first, until she gets back up and reaches for the ventilation grill. Yeah, as if Shakma is gonna suddenly stop attacking her.

Overall, Shakma is not the worst horror film out there, but is nowhere near as good as others on here would have you believe.

Lets go ape

[lost-in-limbo · 5/10 · 4 September 2007]

A group of medical students are planning to play live role game in the shape of "Dungeon and Dragons" in the medical campus building after hours. They'll be locked in and accompanied by Professor Sorenson, who'll be The Gamester that looks over the contest. While searching for clues, to eventually save the princess. They didn't expect a real nemesis would try to stop them, as now a furious, drugged up lab baboon is on the loose and tearing apart the gamers.

I'm stuck here, because I thought there were good moments within, but also equally bad aspects to this shonky, overwrought and mildly fun monkey on the rampage b-grade clunker. The disappointing thing is the premise pulls you right in, but what we get never lives up to it and its frustratingly vapid script with little success stretches the one-idea concept out. You could only do so much. It does seem to hold your interest in patches though, after a somewhat meandering set-up to begin with. Actually I got to hand it to screenwriter Roger Engle, as even though there was too much dead air and repetition, it still has guts and never took the easy option. The serious approach the material is going for is totally thrown off balance due to how silly going it gets and the lack of menace dripping off the "I have no respect for doors!" baboon. Some people might find the baboon terrifying, but on the other hand for me it came off pretty risible. Although that's me watching it, and not being in the same room with it, as if so Im sure it would be a different story. The baboon's obviously method performance was nothing but brilliant! Watching it bouncing about, dawdling around on its hind legs, shrieking in anger and the facial activity gave me a good laugh, but at least the attack scenes struck a nerve as they were brutally viscous and relentless in detail. Some took place off-screen, but were well done and the few we saw were unpleasantly aggressive. Decent gore FX was on show, but this was more so the aftermath and blood was spilled very often. Directors' Tom Logan and Hugh Parks do a mechanical job, in which case they could've done with much tighter editing. However because of the minimal production, it's stringent quality generates some well-mounted anxiety and claustrophobic passages. It's all about the jolts, and since we know that, we see them pretty much coming and in an all too quickly, cramp fashion. David C. Williams' brooding musical score is well placed throughout. The performances by the young cast including the likes of Christopher Atkins, Amanda Wyss and Ari Meyers is by the numbers. Roddy McDowall is reliably fine, in an all to familiar role.

Overly drawn out, but reasonably fun fodder.

some good baboon attacks, but a lot of boring uneventful wandering through empty halls and rooms

[FieCrier · 3/10 · 4 March 2005]

A bunch of college students play a live-action fantasy role-playing game like Dungeon & Dragons in an (apparently) locked building with caged primates, with their professor acting as Dungeonmaster. They wander alone from room to room, communicating with the professor by walkie-talkie. There's some supposedly unbeatable villain in the game named Nemesis, but I don't know who he was. They're supposed to figure out some sort of word puzzle from things written on blackboards, which I guess is a code word to give to the heroine, who is the only one who bothered to dress up in a costume for the game.

The game is deadly boring, and they really should have made it more interesting and involving, or else contrived some other reason for the students to be in the building. I'd have to guess this movie is actually older than 1990, due to the poor picture quality and the terribly simplistic computer graphics on the computers that appear in the movie (although that may be the fault of the budget and not the age).

In between boring unsuspenseful scenes of people wandering around, a baboon attacks. The attacks are fairly violent, and if the movie's editing had been tighter, this might have been a better movie. There is a good scene of the baboon running down a hallway, and also towards the end a student has a plan to beat the baboon when we think he has given up that is also a good scene.

However, on the whole, the movie is too long, and has too many scenes that drag without serving a purpose. The characters are not really fleshed out, and looking at the list of actors and their characters' names, I can't tell who was who.

Please, Don't Eat My Face!...

[azathothpwiggins · 19 August 2020]

Professor Sorenson (Roddy McDowall) and his assistant, Sam (Christopher Atkins) are working on an experimental brain serum to reduce aggression. Upon injecting it into a baboon named SHAKMA, it goes berserk in the lab, causing Sorenson to order Sam to put the creature down. Inexplicably, Sam decides against the idea, and SHAKMA escapes, slaughtering all of the other research animals in the process.

Now, with the hyper-energized creature on the loose, no one is safe. This is made far worse, due to the fact that Sorenson's students have been locked in the building for a treasure hunt game! Everyone is in for a long, bloody night.

This isn't a bad horror movie, though it's fairly obvious where it's headed from the beginning. Personally, I find baboons to be scary as hell anyway, so, this works for me!

Co-stars Amanda Wyss as Tracy...

Christopher Atkins, D & D, crazed primate= $$$$$...

[ericdetrick2002 · 5/10 · 5 December 2005]

...ok, maybe not the $$$$ at the box office. Let's face it Christopher Atkins and D & D was not a box office grabber in 1990 either. Shakma is a lot like drinking stout or maybe even scotch. It get's better after each viewing (or maybe it gets better after drinking scotch). OK, this film is really bad in many ways. But because I have fond memories of getting loaded with my old buddies while watching a crazed baboon beat against various objects it goes down as one of my top bad movies. Come on, just the name alone should put a grin on your face. Say it...SHAKMA. Keep on saying Shakma over and over. There is nothing that makes me happier then walking into a room, saying "Shakma" and having everyone laugh in agreement. Pass this on and maybe one day everyone will know what Shakma really means...

Lame

[zetes · 2/10 · 21 October 2013]

Truly awful. A bunch of medical researchers secure the use of a large building for a long night of LARPing. Unfortunately, the baboon they were experimenting on earlier has gone totally nuts and escapes. Named Shakma, the baboon weeds out the LARPers one by one. When I first heard about this movie (earlier the same day I watched it), I said to myself, "Killer baboon? I'm in!" Obviously, I didn't expect it to be good, but I thought it might be worth a laugh. It isn't. It's totally freakin' boring. The film is in desperate need of an editor, first of all. It just drags and drags. But, really, the biggest problem is the baboon is not really that threatening. I'm sure he could hurt you, but I'm pretty sure I could take him. Starring Christopher Atkins, Amanda Wyss, Ari Meyers and Roddy MacDowell.

Typhoon is one tough beast!

[HatfieldCW · 7/10 · 29 January 2006]

If you have never seen the unrestrained, unreasoning fury of an enraged baboon, brace yourself.

Watching Shakma, I started out thinking, "Well, he's just a little monkey, it's not like he's a tiger or a snake or something," but after seeing Typhoon throw himself (quite literally) into the role of Shakma, I reconsidered the destructive capabilities of the primate chassis.

Shakma is a many-armed frenzy of horror and doom, and this movie is absolutely worthwhile if only for that awe-inspiring display.

The acting's a little thin, and there are a few scenes that'll really make you roll your eyes, but if you get a chance to see this movie for under $5, take it. You won't be sorry.

Shakma Needs Some Trousers!

[Cobbler · 5/10 · 16 November 2001]

Not as bad as you might expect. The main problems I had were with the extremely cheap set, which could have been much more creative (there were only two or three exterior shots in the whole film), and with the embarrassingly banal Dungeons & Dragons game that the characters play, which was ridiculous and seems like part of another movie altogether. Other than that, the actors were fine, the deaths were pleasingly bloody, and poor Shakma really needed to wear some pants. The movie is well-paced, but plays all of its cards too early, so you realize how thin the story actually is. Shakma would be good for an undemanding video double feature, perhaps with the similiarly baboon themed In the Shadow of Kilimanjaro, which is a much better movie. I give Shakma 5/10.

P.S. I missed the part that told me why the characters couldn't just leave the building?

Shakma Review

[BA_Harrison · 7/10 · 28 November 2018]

In a flagrant breach of health and safety regulations (and flying in the face of common sense), professor Sorenson (Roddy McDowall, not playing an ape for a change) locks the external doors to the college, trapping himself and a handful of his students inside the building while they play a real-life fantasy role-playing game (with the use of a hilariously crap computer, tracking devices and walkie-talkies). Their fun is interrupted by a crazed lab baboon called Shakma, whose brain has been fried by an experimental serum.

Who knew that a baboon - not much bigger than an average sized dog - could be so butt-clenchingly scary? Shakma, directed by Hugh Parks and Tom Logan, starts off on shaky ground, the nerds playing their silly game proving rather boring, but once the angry ape shows up to spoil the evening, the film proves surprisingly terrifying thanks to a standout performance from Typhoon the baboon. Crazier than Nic Cage on cocaine, the hairy horror gives his all, screeching loudly, crashing wildly against doors, leaping onto victim's faces, and generally being one incredibly fearsome furry fellow.

With a willingness to bump off any character, no matter how likeable, a smattering of gore (the baboon goes mad with jaws and claws and likes to eat his victims), and an unpredictable ending, Shakma is a solidly entertaining B-movie - so much so that it's easy to forgive the clichéd cat scare (and rat scare).

An all time low in film making, even for a B movie.

[dancore · 1/10 · 1 March 2004]

This movie looks and feels like it escaped from a 70's or 60's drive-in cinema. It's plot is terribly feeble, the actors are more amateurs than anyone could be, and this computer game scheme was out of date even then.

Looking back at it now, I think it's much worse than it could have been in 1990. Camera work is like a Kentucky chicken farm home-movie about Fido, the family basset hound, who celebrated his 5th birthday, and got a bite from the prise winning rooster, filmed with a VHS-C camera. Microphones hang in more times than they don't. The shadows cast by the crew or the lamps, or whatever that has nothing to do with the given scene occasionaly hang in to the picture.

Major editing errors occur very often. For example: the baboon bangs on the door, trying to break it in. On the other side two teenagers, looking like extras from an early season starsky&hutch episode, are pulling it towards themselves, trying to stop the baboon from opening it. If this was in real life, the baboon would break through the doors like a speeding locomotive, Neo style.

Another blooper is that this whole stuff is supposed to take place in 10+ storied building. At the start of the movie, we see the big block, OK. But in the last quarter of the movie we see the building again from the outside, (this time at night) and just above the second floor we can see the underpart of the drain pipes. This is way beyond anything I've seen.

There are no special effects, the monkey looks like the blood thirsty rabbit from Monty Python's Holy Grail, except it's more shabby and dirty, reminding you more of a microphone boom than any kind of animal.

I was bored to death by this movie from the first frame to the last. It's not scary, it's not exciting, it's not dramatic, it's plainly the shame of every movie maker.

It's bad. -4 out of 10.

One of my favorites

[Ben-Brooks · 10/10 · 7 June 2005]

This is one of my favorite non-human stalking a group of students in a building horror film.

If you haven't seen this film and will, stop reading this, I don't want to spoil it for you.

Shakma is one mean creature, he just goes for you and doesn't stop attacking until it kills you. I wish either of the leading ladies would have made it to the end, but I guess not in all horror films women become heroines, which is refreshing and disturbing at the same time.

This film has some characters you like and some you don't, I particularly liked Ari Meyers's character a lot, she was so sweet and hopelessly in love with Chris Atkins. Poor Ari faces the horrors of finding her brother dead and being attacked by Shakma all alone, why did Atkins have to leave her all alone?

Vastly entertaining horror flick about murderous baboon.

[HumanoidOfFlesh · 7/10 · 15 January 2006]

Roddy McDowall plays the professor Sorenson who juices up a baboon with brain serum so he'll be calmer,unfortunately he makes a mistake and instead of injecting the right serum,he injects the serum that turns him into a bloodthirsty predator."Shakma" is a much better film than Tom Logan's awful slasher "The Night Brings Charlie". It's full of violent animal action,mostly the baboon attacking and killing medical scientists and the other animals in the lab."Shakma" offers a nice amount of blood and gore and the killings are pretty brutal. The acting is solid,the score is amazing and the baboon is downright aggressive. Overall this is an immensely enjoyable animal-on-the-loose horror flick that should satisfy genre enthusiasts. Give it a chance.7 out of 10.

i like the monkey

[dan_pap · 3/10 · 18 June 2019]

Shakma is worse than I expected it to be. Much, much worse. It's cheesier than a triple-cheese Imo's pizza. Watch adult med students play a fantasy game until they're stalked by a killer baboon. Roddy McDowall plays the students' teacher, who for some reason sponsors their sophomoric game. He goes by the alias GAME MASTER.

As sophisticated audience members, we're expected to know what the hell is going on in this little game of wizards, jewels, princesses, walkie-talkies, and demons. The premise of the game is so ridiculous, it sets the entire movie up for failure.

This isn't a long movie by any means, but it feels like three hours, and I'm not even kidding. Basically the exposition takes a half hour, then the rest of the movie is the cast running around and Shakma attacking doors. That's all you really need to know.

Shakma will require you to abandon any sense of logic. None of the characters make any sensible decisions. Apparently in a building with 7 floors, there's only one telephone. ONE TELEPHONE. Come on people, there's no way you can make this fall under the umbrella of suspension of disbelief.

There are a few instances in Shakma that are brilliant. For an entire minute, I thought this movie was going somewhere. Alas, too much cheese stole all these moments away.

So if you want to see discount Luke Skywalker chase a baboon, this is the movie for you. If you want to see sexual deviants play a dress-up game, Shakma is your go-to. If you don't want your intelligence insulted, stray far away from Shakma.

Good for a few laughs though.

Come on guys

[missourimule · 7 February 2003]

People here are being way too hard on this movie. It's a B horror film and a pretty good one at that. The scenes with the baboon attacking the doors are scary. If you know how agressive and powerful a full grown male baboon can be you would have a little more respect for this film.

Poor little monkey

[Varboro · 2/10 · 8 April 2004]

The only good character in this movie is the poor little monkey. Too bad he's killed at the end ( of course. He could not win anyway).

Well. I don't even remember the other characters, as they are insipid and uninteresting. Good thing Shakma clean the world of them, considering they tried to kill him first.

A good thing in this movie, the monkey kills about everybody. The "hero" seems badly wounded at the end of the movie and I like to think he will die of his wounds before he gets some outside help. Well, I hope so.

I'm not sure, but I think there is some story in this movie. A bunch of pseudo-scientist students and professor makes experiences on animals, kill a baboon and play a rolegame after school hours in the building. The game seems pretty boring, but they enjoy it anyway. Tadaaa ! The monkey is not really dead, he awakes very angry ( I can understand that) and kills everyone. They deserve it. There is a scene with a girl in a car and two morons throwing forks at her, and some other scenes like this one to make the movie last 1 1/2 hour long.

Maybe it was necessary to make a movie about a killer baboon ( there is even movies with killer tomatoes, so why not monkeys ?) but there is no need to watch it. If you really like killer baboons on a campus try creepshow instead. Well, seriously, I gave it 3 because the monkey is so cute, but this is REALLY a bad movie

Ape fear.

[Hey_Sweden · 5/10 · 6 June 2015]

The students in the med school of a university play a "Dungeons & Dragons" type of role playing game in their tower after hours. They're supervised by their head professor, Sorenson (Roddy McDowall). Unfortunately, one of their primate charges is a baboon named Shakma (played by "Typhoon"), who has been genetically altered - big surprise there - and who has now gone absolutely crazy, slaughtering any stupid human unlucky enough to be close to it. As the humans dwindle in number, they find that getting help from the outside world is next to impossible.

"Shakma" is pretty laughable, all right, not that it's *completely* worthless. The action is passable, the suspense passable. The most entertaining aspect is the animal action. Typhoon is a real force of nature and was obviously trained as well as a baboon could possibly be trained. Things get pretty gory, too. The movie is generally amusing for putting an "animal attack" spin on the standard slasher formula. Everything about it is no more than adequate on a technical level; it suffers the most from its silly script and inane characterizations. The actors treat the material with the best poker faces that they can muster: former teen idol Christopher Atkins, Amanda Wyss of the original "A Nightmare on Elm Street", Ari Meyers of 'Kate & Allie'. The casting of McDowall is certainly appropriate given his iconic role(s) in the "Planet of the Apes" franchise.

This is a junk movie, to be sure, but it's still reasonably entertaining. One big problem is that it's overextended, going on too long at approximately an hour and 42 minutes.

Five out of 10.

Turn off your mind and get ready for some ape-tastic surprises

[mickeyshamrock · 7/10 · 19 January 2010]

You are currently reading about an excellent (see: totally ridiculous) Saturday morning monster movie starring Amanda "Tina from A Nightmare on Elm St." Wyss and Christopher "Blue Lagoon" Atkins (among others). Sounds like a terrible movie, so why do you love it mickeyshamrock? Well, aside from the typical "so bad it's good" moments, and my raging hard on for Amanda Wyss, the baboon footage is insane. I've never seen anything like it. Shakma (aka Typhoon) literally goes ape sh*t every take. Every time the baboon is on camera it elevates this movie beyond it's B-movie shackles. Definitely to be watched in one sitting, breaking it up will only expose some of it's faults. Turn off your mind and get ready for some ape-tastic surprises.

Dull, repetitive animal attack movie.

[LW-08854 · 3/10 · 26 December 2023]

Dull, repetitive animal attack movie. Filmed in colourless corridors with a cast who deserved better I wouldn't recommend buying this movie. The production values are so low it's hard to really think of this as a real movie. It's the kind of thing you'd find playing at like 2am on channel 5 I think. Not only is the film not very well shot with the same drab photography and dull lifeless set design but the script itself is also extremely poor and disappointing. This kind of horror falls into the when animals attack kind of horror but a little monkey is just not threatening enough. Do yourself a favour and skip this movie.

That movie totally freaked me out

[cherub96 · 7/10 · 5 September 2003]

When I saw that movie a few years ago it totally freaked me out. Which is surprising, as I had thought I had become immune to horror movies. I am surprised the movie got such a bad score, because for me it totally worked. Watch at night, alone.....

What the...?

[SpiderPants · 1/10 · 22 September 2001]

I want to meet the guy who was sitting alone in his underwear on one lonely night, while playing a board game by himself and wishing his parrot could say more than "hello", when he suddenly conceived the idea for this idiotic monstrosity of a film. Who in the world would ever think a menacing villain would be a baboon? They also managed to kill the two main characters.

****SPOILER****

Luckily, Roddy McDowall gets to be wonderfully massacred, so he won't have to be stuck in the movie any longer.

I think the makers of this movie should be shoved into a small room with the baboon from this film. If they're lucky, they'll be killed in a very gruesome manner.

:D

Shakma Khan

[Bezenby · 7/10 · 19 April 2016]

Who doesn't like a psychotic monkey film? Fresh from playing a monkey himself in several thousand Planet of the Apes films, Roddy McDowall plays a cold, heartless college professor whom endears himself to the audience by performing some sort of operation on a baboon called Shakma. This doesn't go well and he asks Shakma's mate, Hero Guy, to put the monkey to sleep. Which he doesn't. Or something. I was too busy trying to figure all the crap they were talking about this game they were going on about.

This game they were going on about seems to be some sort of live action dungeons and dragons type deal, but not much is explained to be honest. Some jock manages to wangle his way into the game for reason, and to cut a long story short, everyone ends up trapped in the college building while Shakma gets up and starts tearing people's throats out. Some people think its all part of the game, while Hero Guy and his girlfriend run about in circles and barricade doors as Shakman goes nuts.

Although this kind of film can get tedious, this one wasn't too bad as Shakma as a real life monkey does come across as rather insane, and no wonder, if you read in the trivia bit on IMDb how they made him go mental. Even though there's not much in way of gore or nudity, Shakma certainly munched his way through a lot of the cast, so, if you see it for thirty pence at a car boot sale in Glasgow like I did, pick it up.

Is it even a monkey, or an ape? We'll never know.

Hilarious (spoiler - somewhat)

[mikedelorenzo · 2/10 · 23 September 2003]

Yes the animal scenes were incredibly realistic and the enraged primate was actually frightening but the storyline destroys any credibility that these items may have built up.

The funniest scene in the movie is when Shakma runs down the entire length of a hallway that ends in an elevator with a hapless victim. It looks like something out of a football recap video - watching the baboon pick up speed with every step and the bonehead in the elevator gimping around like a fish out of water. When Shakma "sacks" the victim/quarterback I almost wet myself laughing everytime and I have seen that about 100 times.

Great movie if you want to kill some time with your buddies (male I would encourage) and drink a six pack or two. Trust me the hilarity is well worth it!

P.S. The acting makes the people on the WB/UPN look like Lawrence Olivier and Meryl Streep