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Passing through the Hollywood suburbia, George A. Romero promptly finds his Rue Morgue. The thorough undermining of jock vitality kicks off with a morning jog, a truck sends the athlete (Jason Beghe) spinning in the air and into the hands of the surgeon (Stanley Tucci) suffering from "clinical Snake in the Grass Syndrome." The doctor scoops up the patient's girlfriend (Janine Turner), the former runner comes home paralyzed from the neck down to an overbearing mom (Joyce Van Patten) and a crabby nurse (Christine Forrest). He perks up when his scientist friend (John Pankow) presents him with a new companion, an exceedingly expressive capuchin monkey with a taste for Peggy Lee tunes and candlelit dinners. A serum of liquified human brains gradually turns the cute pet into a Fuseli gremlin, its psyche melds with that of the paralyzed protagonist in a series of scampering, prowling POV visions. "What if I wasn't civilized anymore," a persistent Romero inquiry. The central image is certainly abstruse (Arliss' The Night Has Eyes), couched in droll Hitchcockisms (Rear Window, mainly) for a brilliant realization of the mind awakening to animal instincts. Romance with the comely trainer (Kate McNeil) soothes one beast and enrages another—the hero in a wrathful trance bites through his own lip, his furry helper licks the blood and rushes out to do his vengeful bidding. The climax points up King Kong and runs the gamut from Ford's The Wings of Eagles to Argento's Phenomena, a hysterical vortex for the fairy-tale of dependency, freedom, and possessive lovers with straight razors. A Tom Savini stinger near the close prepares the Buñuelian send-up of the return to normalcy. "Beats going back to the jungle, huh?" With Stephen Root, William Newman, and Patricia Tallman.
--- Fernando F. Croce |