Blue Monkey
1987
William Fruet
An elderly man is wandering around a greenhouse when he gets
pricked by a strange plant. Soon after, he collapses and is hospitalized with a
bacterial infection. He dies and the infection emerges in the shape of a big worm
that crawls out his mouth. A bunch of dumb kids feed the worm some experimental
growth powder, and before long, a giant
praying mantis/fly monster is rampaging through the hospital. The building
is locked down an no one can escape, it's up to a lone cop (Steve Railsback) to
try stop the monster before it snips off any more heads.
Blue Monkey contains zero monkeys and barely even contains a
monster since the giant bug doesn't make an appearance until nearly an
hour into the 96 minute run. Things play out like a mixture of the Fly
(1986) and Alien (1979) but with just a hint of 50s style monster films. Blue Monkey can
never quite built up the momentum to be exciting, and doesn't manage to fall
back on atmosphere or even impressive effects. The films starts out with
some delightful gross-outs, but just never follows up on it later on. There's plenty
of opportunity for satire or commentary about hospitals and health care but,
the movie just seems content to barely scrape by on its premise. Blue Monkey
could have been a minor cult classic, but instead it ends up kind of middling.
The best thing about it is the VHS cover, which is outstanding. Just look at that
for 96 minutes instead.
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