Stometer Save your money for something good and enjoyable

SpunkySelfTwitter It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

AshUnow This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Kaydan Christian A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Fella_shibby Saw this movie on a rented VHS in the early 90s. Revisited it recently. Shakma was a good b horror fun for its time. The film is about an enraged primate who goes on the killing spree. The primate was actually frightening n fast paced but the storyline, acting n editing was lame. Found it to b dull now.

Scott LeBrun The students in the med school of a university play a "Dungeons & Dragons" type of role playing game in their tower after hours. They're supervised by their head professor, Sorenson (Roddy McDowall). Unfortunately, one of their primate charges is a baboon named Shakma (played by "Typhoon"), who has been genetically altered - big surprise there - and who has now gone absolutely crazy, slaughtering any stupid human unlucky enough to be close to it. As the humans dwindle in number, they find that getting help from the outside world is next to impossible."Shakma" is pretty laughable, all right, not that it's *completely* worthless. The action is passable, the suspense passable. The most entertaining aspect is the animal action. Typhoon is a real force of nature and was obviously trained as well as a baboon could possibly be trained. Things get pretty gory, too. The movie is generally amusing for putting an "animal attack" spin on the standard slasher formula. Everything about it is no more than adequate on a technical level; it suffers the most from its silly script and inane characterizations. The actors treat the material with the best poker faces that they can muster: former teen idol Christopher Atkins, Amanda Wyss of the original "A Nightmare on Elm Street", Ari Meyers of 'Kate & Allie'. The casting of McDowall is certainly appropriate given his iconic role(s) in the "Planet of the Apes" franchise.This is a junk movie, to be sure, but it's still reasonably entertaining. One big problem is that it's overextended, going on too long at approximately an hour and 42 minutes.Five out of 10.

poe426 We've all heard the stories, and some of us have seen the pictures: a chimp goes apes--- and attacks a man/woman and proceeds to eat his/her face off. In SHAKMA, we have an enraged baboon wandering around a deserted office building with a bunch of role-playing nerds in the dead of night. Monkey or Ape (I prefer to think of baboons as Apes DESPITE the prehensile tail, because of their size), Shakma isn't the kind of creature you want to f--- around with- even in passing. When he becomes "enraged", he literally bounces off the walls, screaming his lungs out. I say "enraged" because the baboon in the movie isn't so much enraged as AROUSED. Look closely and you'll see whereof I speak... Give the filmmakers credit (or condemnation) for one thing: they had the nerve to sexually arouse a powerful primate just for a few scenes in their movie. Watch closely and you'll actually see the walls SHAKE when Shakma bounces off of them. That in itself puts this movie in a category all its own.

lost-in-limbo A group of medical students are planning to play live role game in the shape of "Dungeon and Dragons" in the medical campus building after hours. They'll be locked in and accompanied by Professor Sorenson, who'll be The Gamester that looks over the contest. While searching for clues, to eventually save the princess. They didn't expect a real nemesis would try to stop them, as now a furious, drugged up lab baboon is on the loose and tearing apart the gamers.I'm stuck here, because I thought there were good moments within, but also equally bad aspects to this shonky, overwrought and mildly fun monkey on the rampage b-grade clunker. The disappointing thing is the premise pulls you right in, but what we get never lives up to it and its frustratingly vapid script with little success stretches the one-idea concept out. You could only do so much. It does seem to hold your interest in patches though, after a somewhat meandering set-up to begin with. Actually I got to hand it to screenwriter Roger Engle, as even though there was too much dead air and repetition, it still has guts and never took the easy option. The serious approach the material is going for is totally thrown off balance due to how silly going it gets and the lack of menace dripping off the "I have no respect for doors!" baboon. Some people might find the baboon terrifying, but on the other hand for me it came off pretty risible. Although that's me watching it, and not being in the same room with it, as if so Im sure it would be a different story. The baboon's obviously method performance was nothing but brilliant! Watching it bouncing about, dawdling around on its hind legs, shrieking in anger and the facial activity gave me a good laugh, but at least the attack scenes struck a nerve as they were brutally viscous and relentless in detail. Some took place off-screen, but were well done and the few we saw were unpleasantly aggressive. Decent gore FX was on show, but this was more so the aftermath and blood was spilled very often. Directors' Tom Logan and Hugh Parks do a mechanical job, in which case they could've done with much tighter editing. However because of the minimal production, it's stringent quality generates some well-mounted anxiety and claustrophobic passages. It's all about the jolts, and since we know that, we see them pretty much coming and in an all too quickly, cramp fashion. David C. Williams' brooding musical score is well placed throughout. The performances by the young cast including the likes of Christopher Atkins, Amanda Wyss and Ari Meyers is by the numbers. Roddy McDowall is reliably fine, in an all to familiar role.Overly drawn out, but reasonably fun fodder.