Horror in the 90s: 'Shakma'

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.

Shakma 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, and 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.

It is incredibly entertaining and a little disconcerting to watch poor Shakma go about his killing spree. Shakma is kind of adorable with his soulful eyes and bright red butt. He's curious and capable of opening doors. And then he becomes a wild-eyed killing machine and I am conflicted. How did the filmmakers manage to get him to be so angry and yet not hurt anyone for real? That's probably not a great story. According to IMDB trivia, Shakma was brought to anger by someone whispering his name. Is it torture to intentionally cause a baboon to rise to anger? Keep in mind, the baboon has no idea he's in a movie. In that context, it does feel wrong.

But, I also can't pretend I wasn't entertained. I was very entertained by the bold choice to make none of these characters particularly likable. I enjoyed the fact that this group of dummies kept getting so easily picked off by their supposed experiment. There is an element of Schadenfreude in seeing an experiment turn against its creator in Shakma. The arrogance and hubris of the protagonists gets a proper comeuppance that I found myself rooting for. And Shakma doesn't disappoint as the baboon proves to be a foe that most of these stooges cannot handle. Face and throat rippings ensue and Shakma does more damage than you might expect.

Against my better judgment, I kind of like Shakma. It's one of those shaggy dog cult movies where you can easily laugh at the incompetence of it while being honestly entertained by the zaniness of it. It's no wonder that Shakma was the star of a very memorable episode of Red Letter Media's Best of the Worst. Shakma is right up the alley of the RLM crew, a wildly misconceived but sneakily entertaining bad movie with an over the top villain concept and a low watt aesthetic that invites a healthy amount of derision.

This article/review of Shakma 1990 is the latest excerpt from my book project, tentatively but not officially titled, Horror in the 90s. It's a labor of love as I am writing about 200 or so movies released between January 1990 and December 1999 to provide a contextual overview of what horror movies were like in the 1990s. The book will include reviews of as many wide release horror movies as I can get my hands on, a ranking of the best horror movies of the 90s, interviews with famed figures of 90s horror and an examination of the famed directors, franchises, and tropes that defined the genre in the 1990s.

It's an ambitious project and one I cannot complete without your help. You can help me make Horror in the 90s a reality by donating to the project here on Vocal. You can make a monthly pledge or leave a one time tip and I will give you a shout out in the book. If you'd like to read previous entries in this serialized version of the book, you can find my reviews on Horror.Media. I've already written articles on Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer, The First Power, Brain Dead, Tales from the Dark Side The Movie, The Exorcist 3, Frankenhooker, Nightbreed, Carnosaur, and Mirror Mirror for this project.

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