Directed by William Fruet
Written by George Goldsmith
Starring Steve Railsback, Gwynyth Walsh, John Veronon, and Joe Flaherty
MPAA Rating: R
Runtime: 96 minutes
Available from Kino Lorber on December 7

by Clayton Hayes, Staff Writer

Blue Monkey is my first experience with the distributor Code Red and I have to say I’m not sure how to feel about it. The Blu-ray packaging displays three different iterations of the film’s promotional art: One on its cardboard slipcase and two on the reversible wrap. It also features an HD transfer from the film’s original 35mm negatives “with extensive color correction” and it certainly felt like a very crisp transfer, with none of the “shuddering” that can sometimes occur. The only extras included are trailers, so buyers shouldn’t expect the commentary tracks or interviews that often accompany similar “cult” releases (including, as far as I can tell, other Code Red releases). The plot summary is also pretty disappointing, describing it as a gory throwback to 1950s giant killer bug films instead of as the fairly tame Alien (1979)/Aliens (1986) riff that it is.

It’s so hard to know where to start with a film like this one, but the title seems a good place to start. Blue Monkey is an absolutely baffling title choice for a movie about a giant killer insect, and watching it certainly didn’t clear anything up. The print used for the film gives its title as Insect! which, though pretty generic and another Aliens crib, at least matched the film. The main plot, when you come right down to it, sees the cast isolated in an exurban hospital and forced to contend with a giant killer bug and its mate.

Our heroes are Detective Jim Bishop (Railsback), a veteran cop whose partner has just been shot in a stakeout gone wrong, and Dr. Rachel Carson (Walsh), an ER doctor. They’re joined by Dr. Carson’s colleague Dr. Judith Glass (Susan Anspach) and, eventually, Dr. Elliot Jacobs (Don Lake), a local entomologist and friend of Dr. Carson’s who happens to live nearby. If that sounds difficult to make sense of, you don’t even know the half of it. Blue Monkey is so stuffed full of plotlines and characters that I assume the filmmakers tossed in anything they thought audiences might find remotely interesting.

Key elements of the film include a band of precocious kids, some highly-infectious bacteria, disproportionate government response, an authority figure afraid of bad publicity, senior citizens who like to drink, a giant experimental lazer, a scientist who admires the monster just a little too much, and genetic growth accelerator. That doesn’t include the several completely ancillary subplots, like the pregnant couple there for comic relief and the head of hospital security who gets stuck outside. And did I mention the hospital used to be an “insane asylum”?

The weird thing is that this kind of works in the movie’s favor. A lot of lower-budget films I’ve seen can drag because there just isn’t enough in the script to fill 90 minutes and, though Blue Monkey isn’t immune, it never sat with any group of characters or any portion of the plot long enough for me to get too bored. It’s certainly enough to get you through the first 45-60 minutes of the film before things really start to go off the rails, which is what most viewers are likely to be waiting for. It definitely hits that “so bad it’s good” sweet spot, especially towards the second half of the film.

All in all, it’s a pretty decent low-budget Aliens clone. There are a lot of fun performances in supporting roles, the plot was busy but mostly made sense within the world of the film, and forced romantic tension between our leads is mercifully kept to a minimum. So what if it cost about $1 million more to make than Killer Klowns From Outer Space (which came out a year later and looks much, much better), so what if our “heroic lead” burns several people alive and leads the monster straight into multiple groups of helpless patients, so what if the movie decides to completely undermine its most competent character just so a man can save the day? At least it was a fun ride.