Arriving in Africa to explore a previously unexplored section of the jungle, anthropology students realize that the whole trip was a trap in order to gather bait for a race of ferocious, highly-developed apes and try to get out of the jungle alive.This here was a little disappointing, but still managed to get some good parts to it. One of the biggest marks here is the fact that the jungle here has a really great atmosphere that really helps to up the tension, at times really bearing down into an oppressive force that really highlights the ominous feeling quite nicely, especially the beginning of the trek through the jungle or the later scenes of them searching that really helps the film turn out to be pretty tense when it tries. There's also some fun to be had with the ending half, with its action, chases and everything else fun about it. The chase through the woods is intense, marked by the repeated use of trying to get to safety while trying to remember a trick done earlier, the encounter in the cave is just tops with the whole thing being done through night-vision goggles and having a bunch of large shocks, a fantastic conclusion and some more fun to be had, and it comes from the heels of a spectacular series of scenes in the jungle to make it all the better. There's also some really nice gore in here that comes from its' nice kills from the couple of brutal scratches, part of the face bitten off, a couple violently beaten and dragged away, as well as a spike-trap that punctures through the back to make for a rather nice surprise. These are enough to hold off the few flaws in here. One of the biggest issues here is the extended amount of time spent on showing their trek into the area which is just way too overlong to really amount to a lot of interest in the first half. It's filled with such droning and endless scenes of the group just wandering around in the jungle that there's about half the time devoted to just meandering around while the professor begins endlessly going off about their research or the other ravaged campsite yet none of this really does anything toward generating a good pace. This one here doesn't have much action until the half-way point as it saves most of that until the final minutes, but it feels really dull for large portions of time because it follows those weird pacing patterns. The other big flaw here is the fact that, like just about every single one of the Sci-Fi Channel's creature features, the fact here is that the monster is done through really terrible CGI. The shots of the ape are just plain terrible, looking like they were done on an obsolete computer from decades ago simply days before it was put together, and it offers up absolutely nothing in terms of being fearful of the creatures. What makes them even worse is that this is only accomplished through one shot at the end, comprising all of ten seconds of the film's time. That's all that's shown of the creature, beyond a flash here or there of a hairy arm or a large body moving through the distance. It's hard to get over this, and as a result, the movie really fails at times.Rated R: Graphic Violence and Graphic Language.

A film so stupid there are no monkeys in sight. There are apes, which look like your average CGI gorillas. That is to say, not too impressive. Just use people in suits if they are average sized gorillas. The film has a cast of annoying characters, from the whiny monkey fodder, to ACADEMY AWARD WINNING F. Murray Abraham pretty much screaming "I'm a psychopath". It's annoying and confusing, especially the urinating scene. The monkey/apes/whatevers are disappointingly absent throughout the entire film. They manage to show up just in time for a five second shot, in a Blair Witch style ending. It's a shame the film forgot the monkeys and the fun.

Blood Monkey (2007)* 1/2 (out of 4)Yet another Creature Feature from the Sci-Fi Channel. This one here has six Americans going into the jungles of Africa where they meet up with Professor Hamilton (F. Murray Abraham). The Professor has been doing research on various monkeys and thinks he has discovered a location where extremely large ones live but soon when the group is on their land the creatures attack. The more of these films I watch the more certain I'm becoming that not much really changes from one to the next with the exception being whatever monster they decide to show. As usual we get the typical stereotypes going into the jungle and of course becoming victims. I don't mind these groups going to get slaughtered but I do wish that if the screenplay wants them to be smart and intelligent doctors or brain surgeons then the actors should at least make us believe these characters. As usual we got the idiots you'd expect to see in a film like this and of course they make one mistake after another and this eventually leads to their deaths. I think the biggest problem with this film is that it takes forever to get going. We get a pretty gory attack to start the film and then that's pretty much it for the next hour as we get to know our Americans as well as the doctor. We spend a hour getting to know them yet we really don't get to know anything about them because their "character development" is about as lame as some of the acting. It goes without saying but you really don't expect to see someone like Abraham in a movie like this but he appears to be giving it his all even though I'm sure he was just picking up a paycheck. I'll admit that seeing him come across this gory battlefield and just kicking body parts around made me laugh. The creature here is 100% CGI and looks terrible. I think a lot of people are going to be upset that the creature doesn't appear too often but then again, once you do see it you might want it to just stay away.

The Robert Young the reviewer is talking about is the director. He's listed as Robert Young (III) in the database - not the Robert Young you're talking about in your post.It's an understandable mistake.This movie was standard fair and hardly worth watching.I have no real review to make of the film. It's not worth making a review of the movie or watching the movie even if it's a rainy day and you have nothing to do. There should be a way of responding to comments without typing a lot of 'filler', but I don't know what it is. Sorry for posting all this,but it won't accept my response to 'xminusone' without a lot of words.