There are no monkeys in this cheesy horror film, blue or otherwise; what we do get is a giant killer bug terrorising the occupants of a hospital under quarantine.
The film opens with handyman Fred pricking his hand on a rare Micronesian plant and collapsing soon after. Fred is rushed to the hospital where doctors are surprised to see a giant maggot emerge from the man's mouth. When the maggot is cut open, an insect emerges, which is trapped under a glass container for later examination.
Meanwhile, Detective Jim Bishop (Steve Railsback) is waiting for news about his partner Oscar, who has been shot. While Oscar is on the operating table, Dr. Rachel Carson (Gwyneth Walsh) gives Jim a tour of the hospital, including its high-tech laser research laboratory, which you can bet your bottom dollar comes into play during the film's finale.
Also guaranteed to be a major plot point: the network of old, deserted tunnels used as a playground by four of the hospital's youngest patients (health and safety be damned!).
Speaking of the film's four troublesome tykes, it is their actions that cause the insect to grow to immense proportions, the dumb kids discovering the bug trapped under glass and feeding it with NAC-5, an experimental growth promoter. Doh!
Given the schlocky nature of the film's plot, I had hoped that Blue Monkey would be a huge helping of gory B-movie fun, with plenty of creature effects; unfortunately, there is more goop than gore, and the killer insect doesn't get much screen time until the final act, when it finally gets to run amok (chewing off a guy's head in the movie's bloodiest moment -- if only there had been more of this kind of mayhem!).
Director William Fruet's direction is uninspired, borrowing heavily from James Cameron's Aliens, but without that film-maker's style and imagination (or his budget!). There's lots of crawling around dark passages and blue-lit tunnels, and shots of the characters running for their lives while being chased by the scuttling bug, but perhaps the most blatant crib comes when the bug's larvae emerge to feed on still-living human victims trapped in gelatinous cocoons.
As this sort of silliness goes, Blue Monkey is passable B-movie fun, but with more gore and more bug action it could have been great.
4.5/10, rounded up to 5 for IMDb.
