Monkey Boy

Director - Antonio Monti
Starring - Andrea Melli (Il Giardino Del Sonno), Giovanna Gardelli, Giampiero Bartolini (Ogni Volta Che Te Via)
Release Date - 2009
Genre - Horror
Format - DVD (Personal Collection) (Screener)

Rating (out of 5):

          I get a lot of films to review and I look forward to watching each and every one of them.  However, I sometimes get a film in that makes me a little more excited than others. What usually stirs my excitement is the name of the film or poster artwork.  A few months back I got the film Monkey Boy in for review from the fine folks over at Chemical Burn Entertainment.  The film's title really did peak my interest.  I did a little looking and discovered it was an Italian flick.  So I put it up until I had time to check it out...and I forgot about it.  I want to take a moment to apologize to Chemical Burn for forgetting I had their films.  Sorry guys.
     The film begins with a beautiful animated story about a king and his beautiful daughter who is tricked into losing his daughter to a cursed mirror and the magical dice the young girl carries around.  We then get to the film and we meet a disfigured man that is locked away in the basement who is cared for by an elderly woman.  One night the woman is attacked by two men and is severely beat and murdered.  The two fuck ups open the basement and the beast kills them both.  He then goes out into the world for the first time where he sees many wonders.  He crosses paths with a prostitute, a young girl who carries dice just like in the fairy tale, and the scum of humanity.
     I hate when I start watching a film and it starts out with a bang only to go out as a dud. Monkey Boy did just that.  The film starts out perfectly.  The animation, score, and story was so rich and amazing that I instantly thought it would be the best film I had seen this year.  Then the live action portion of the film popped up and the movie went down hill from there.  The acting in this film seemed great but it is hard to judge do to the film being in Italian.  I honestly hate reading a movie so that may be one of the reasons I did not like the film.  The story was very original and crafty.  The animated portion of the film was superb but the live action bit seemed thrown together and hard as hell to follow.  This could have been the editing but it was bad non-the-less.  Finally the film does have some great practical effects but not that much in the way of on screen kills.  Monkey Boy looks great.  The practical effects on his costume was phenomenal but the few kills we did get was stock and pretty worthless.  Overall, Monkey Boy was a great idea that was not executed properly.  The film does deserve at least one watch but it does not have any replay value.