Oddball scientist Terence Stamp hires college Zoology student Elisabeth Shue to stay at his secluded estate to work (uh-huh…) as maid and assistant (uh-huh…) in his bizarre experiments on primates. One such primate is the orang-utan Link, who is getting on a bit in age, and has a bit of a temper. And when soon the Doctor is away…Link wants to play, and he plays rough. First it’s messing with the other monkeys, then he starts to take a creepily keen interest in the nubile young student Shue. And then things go completely freakin’ bananas.
Aside from some stalking monkey nonsense towards the end, this 1986 Richard Franklin (the limp Aussie thriller “Patrick”, and mediocre genre entries “Cloak and Dagger”, and “Psycho II”) thriller just doesn’t seem to realise what a laugh riot it could’ve been. Instead, Franklin seems to think he’s working with seriously good material. I beg to differ, sir. Seriously. With a dull screenplay by long-time collaborator (and fellow Aussie) Everett De Roche (“Harlequin”), this film takes forever to get anywhere and severely wastes the services of Stamp, whose character inexplicably vanishes from the second half of the film.
Still, if the idea of seeing an orang-utan in a butler’s uniform perving on Elisabeth Shue in the shower sounds like your thing perhaps this will float your boat…personally, I’d rather watch “Project X” or “Planet of the Apes” (or even the sequels) instead.
OVERALL SUMMARY
A silly, minor thriller that unfortunately tries to play things straight and wastes the talents of Terence Stamp in an underdeveloped role. For the undemanding only.
