Back in the days when no one questioned an older gentleman for spending his free time with young girls and boys, there was a professor, who locked himself away for the night in an empty school building with a group of his research students…

SHAKMA (1990)
Genre: Horror
Director: Tom Logan
Rated: R
Buy the DVD

Why, you may ask? To play a complex LARP, or a Dungeons and Dragons -type game involving walkie talkies and radio tracking devices. Still feeling a bit bemused? Join the club. The students are loving the shit out of it though, so who are we to judge?

Unbeknownst to the players, the real game is afoot when Shakma, a test baboon, gets loose. Now this shouldn’t really pose as too much of a problem. However, some silly nonce who was supposed to put Shakma to sleep earlier that day, accidentally gave him a dose of concentrated rage. Looks like someone just picked a bouquet of Whoopsy-Daisies!

Although this does lead to questions as to just what kind of research is being carried out in the facility and why someone who can’t differentiate between a lethal injection and a drug that turns the recipient bat shit crazy is in charge of administering injections to the animals. I guess we’ll never know.

Despite the fact that both the professor and the students should be well versed in dealing with the lab rats, even when they’re baboons, the primate still manages to outwit them all. How did such a dull witted collection of cretins even get into medical school? This is another question to mull over; although I suspect a series of late night lock-ins with the professor may have something to do with it.

After discovering that Shakma is on the rampage and more importantly, unable to manipulate door handles, the students decide to run wildly around the building getting savaged. What kind of horror movie would it be if they had been graced with the gift of common sense? A pretty short one.

So Shakma has a busy night picking them off, leaping at their faces in a cloud of afro fur and a flash of bright red bum cheeks. The students are going to have to either repent for testing useless drugs on animals or find a brain cell between them if they want to survive the night and put this monkey down.

We dare you to buy Shakma on DVD!

Author Gamer Girl writes for FrontTowardsGamer.com and GamerGirlTalk.com. It is highly recommended you follow her on Twitter.
Previously in Poison Popcorn: CASTLE FREAK