Shakma (1990)

My obsession with Shakma began with a trailer – the greatest trailer I’d ever seen:

I watched it over and over again – the screams of “Shakmaaaa!” haunting my dreams. Part of me wanted to see the film, another part of me was terrified that it would not live up to its unbelievably tantalising preview. The brilliant voice-over guy in the trailer seemed to be telling me it would – what with the film’s “amazing” cast (all winners of awards I’ve never heard of) and, of course, Shakma shocking audiences everywhere. After much deliberation, I finally decided to sit down and watch Shakma in its entirety. And boy, am I glad I did…

SHAKMA
1990, USA, Tom Logan & Hugh Parks

As you’ve likely worked out from the trailer, Shakma is part of the tiny primates-getting-angry-and-attacking-people sub-genre. You would have also noticed that the film is set in a hospital; the staff of said hospital are the victims of said angry primate. In this case the primate is Shakma, an angry baboon*. What the trailer doesn’t tell you – and wow, did I laugh hard at this – is that the hospital staff, including their boss (Roddy McDowell), have locked themselves in the hospital in order to play a Dungeons and Dragons-esque role-playing game. Better still, these role-playing nerds are bloody serious about their ridiculous game – the rules of which make no sense whatsoever – despite only one of them looking like the type that would enjoy that sort of silliness. Yes, the role-playing doctor-nerds of Shakma look like jocks and bimbos. And watching Roddy McDowell as the intense ringleader is both sad and funny. So anyway, one of the role-playing jerks puts the angry Shakma down earlier in the day – or so he thinks. Shakma is still alive and escapes his confines to go on a vicious murder spree. Locked in the hospital with an angry baboon, the role-players unbeknownst – at least for a while – continue their stupid game.

*From IMDB:
“The baboon appearing in the movie is not a Shakma but Hamadryas – different species. Shakma baboon (Papio ursinus) is the largest species of baboon, Hamadryas (Papio hamadryas) is significantly smaller and easy recognizable by a mane around his face – the only baboon species to have such feature.”

The addition of role-playing to Shakma is absurd, elevating this film from garbage to very special garbage. It’s clear that the film was written by a Dungeon and Dragons (or something similar) fan. The straight-faced determination of the players is free from irony. It also plays out like some sort of fantasy where role-playing is really cool. Everyone wants in on this game – the jocks, the babes and the boss. Playing this game is a fucking privilege in the terrifying world of Shakma. Only one character seems to break the illusions of grandeur. One jock hospital attendant is desperate to play, the role-players reluctantly let him join in. But once he starts playing he seems instantly bored and ruins the game. I’m not sure what brought on this swift character change, but it cracked me up.

The cast of Shakma is nothing special – despite the bloated claims of the trailer voice-over guy. But there are two magnificent standouts: Christopher Atkins as the leading man, Sam, and Typhoon as Shakma. Yes, a monkey outdoes Roddy McDowell. But first to Christopher Atkins. He’s the standout for one reason only – he is fucking horrible. Atkins is a rotten lead. With his wide-eyed non-acting, you have to wonder whether he was taking the piss. Somehow – and rather sadly – I think he wasn’t. There isn’t an ounce of humour in his performance, making it all the more hilarious. On the other hand, Typhoon the baboon gives a wonderful performance as Shakma. Now, I’m not one to harp on about animal performers, but if there was an animal equivalent of the Oscars, Typhoon would clean up. This movie might be a stupid piece of shit, but Shakma is genuinely scary. Baboons are inherently frightening, and Typhoon obviously is aware of this. His constant fury, his hyperactive rage, is beautiful to behold.

Another awesome bonus to add to the rubbishness of Shakma is the soap opera aroma it omits. The film’s locations and sets all reek of daytime television; a perfect backdrop for the awful characters and relationship subplots that would be at home on Days of Our Lives. It’s not just the threadbare sets and stilted performances that make Shakma so fantastic[ally bad], it’s the combination of these elements with gore and nastiness. The violence in Shakma won’t have gore-hounds banging down the door, but when placed against a televisual backdrop the blood seems unearthly. Really, what the fuck were they thinking when they made this film? Shakma is for nobody. It throws role-playing, gore and soap opera aesthetics into a big silly pot, stirring them together to create shit-smeared madness. And despite its gentle soap opera qualities, Shakma wraps things up in an outrageously nihilistic fashion.

I love Shakma. It does the impossible. It lives up to its insane trailer. It is undoubtedly a giant hunk of turd, but it teeters the line between being genuinely exciting – Shakma is a truly imposing villain – and being hysterically awful. I checked IMDB to see what the crew of Shakma have been responsible for since. Of the two directors, Tom Logan has had the more impressive career. But unsurprisingly, he seems to have stuck mostly to television. The other director, Hugh Parks, seems to only have a handful of films – most straight to video – to his name. The writer, Roger Engle, has only this and a strange Japanese re-edit of Shakma called Panic in the Tower in his credits. Was the pairing of Tom Logan and Hugh Parks some sort of pathetic version of the pairing of David Lynch and Mark Frost? Throwing together a weird movie guy and a mainstream television guy to create jarring brilliance (or, in this case, jarring stupidity)? Or perhaps Logan, Parks and Engle were role-playing buddies and this was a passion project? So many questions that I will never have answered. But at least I still have Shakma. Yes, Shakma, shocking audiences everywhere! SHAKMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!