Blue Monkey Movie Review

Trailer here.

Blue Monkey is a 1987 horror movie directed by William Fruet and starring Steve Railsback, Gwynyth Walsh,Susan Anspach, Don Lake and John Vernon.

An old lady called Marwella has an unusual plant in her greenhouse. It comes from an island somewhere. Her friend pricks himself on it. He feels weird afterwards and he collapses. His finger is infected. He is brought into hospital. The doctors look at it and they are baffled. The man spits out something odd. At the same time, Detective Jim Bishop(Railsback) arrives at he hospital with his partner, who has been shot. The insect pupa is put into a jar and taken to the lab so the doctors can look at it. They are going to call the institute for disease control for help. Dr. Judith Glass(Anspach) is interested in it and she cuts into the pupa. An insect emerges. Dr. Rachel Carson(Walsh) is looking at it also. She calls a friend of hers-Dr. Elliot Jacobs(Lake), to look at this new insect.

Everyone is in quarantine, including Jim, until they can discover what this insect is. The man who carried the insect suddenly gets worse and he dies. More of the patients are being infected. The sample taken from the hospital is analysed at the institute. They have never seen anything like it. They call the health department. Some kids who are wandering around the hospital go into the lab and they pour some sort of powder on the insect. The insect starts to grow and it kills some staff members. People are beginning to panic as the insect is on the prowl. It turns out that the powder the kids spilled on the insect was growth hormone. The police show up, along with the army. Roger Levering(Vernon) is the hospital director and he is not happy about this at all. 

The hospital is put under quarantine and nobody is leaving. The insect is killing people in the hospital. Dr. Jacobs, Jim and Rachel see the insect. It is gigantic. It looks as if the growth hormone has caused it to become a giant killer. It gives birth to another insect. Soon, it will be breeding all over the place and there will be giant insects roaming the corridors. Dr. Jacobs tells them that they need to kill the female to stop it breeding. They need to use fire.

They search for butane and they need to lure the male into another place and get at the female. They search for the female. The eggs are hatching already. They are chased by the male and the female is alone. Jim burns the female and the eggs. The male sees this and he is mad.

Jim is chased by it. Rachel wants to get into the laser lab and kill the thing. Jim shoots at it. He tries to lure it away from everyone else. He gets cornered. Rachel and Dr. Jacobs play a recording of the female's voice. They lure it into the laser lab and Rachel uses the laser on it. It doesn't work at first, but then they point it at the creature's eyes. It starts to die. Everyone survives, but of course, there are more eggs.

This was a fun creature feature. The idea of a huge insect running around a hospital killing people has to be fun! It's definitely entertaining and one to watch.I will give it a 5/10.

Day of the Reaper Movie Review

Trailer here.

Day of the Reaper is a 1984 horror movie directed by Tim Ritter and starring Cathy O' Hanlon, Todd Nolf and Patrick Foster.

This film begins with a man escaping from a mental institution. He wanders off into the woods. Jennifer(O' Hanlon) is talking about her friends being killed thirteen months ago. She says that the killer was caught but she is afraid he will come for her. She has nightmares about it. Some girls are on the beach. Their car breaks down and they go for a look around. Jennifer stops at a phone and she calls a detective. She tells him that she thinks the killer is after her. The detective Rosenberg, tells her that the killer is in prison. He is angry with her and he tells her that she is crazy and needs to see a shrink. He finds out that the killer has escaped. He is called the Reaper. 

Jennifer talks to Doctor Bloch(Foster) and he tells her that the killer is back.  The Reaper(Nolf) kills Rosenberg. The doctor wants to get rid of the Reaper and he wants to use Jennifer as bait. The doctor has trained someone to face the Reaper(what??). The person is dressed as the Reaper and they face off. He gets killed by the real Reaper. Dr. Bloch then kills the real Reaper and he cuts out his heart and eats it. This turns him into the new Reaper and he kills Jennifer.

Now, this is really low budget. This is not a decent movie at all. The whole thing is amateurish and the acting is dreadful. The story is bad etc. I understand that there isn't much money put into this and it is just a starting point for the director. So, just be aware of that if you decide to watch it. It wasn't for me, but I can cut it some slack because of the lack of money and experience. I am giving this 1/10.