Great Movie Apes: Ella from Monkey Shines

Rumor has it that this week the apes will rise. So in honor of our primate cousins and their varied achievements on film, Movieline will honor one great movie ape/monkey/chimp each day who embodies an admirable quality found in monkeykind. Today, we look to the fearsome potential in the primate race, as embodied by Ella in George Romero's 1988 horror pic Monkey Shines. Who is at fault when a monkey kills... for her master?

Name: Ella

Film: Monkey Shines (1988)

Great Ape Quality: Loyalty, to the point of murder

When quadraplegic athlete Alan Mann (Jason Beghe) is given an experimental capuchin monkey assistant named Ella to help around the house, the telepathic link they share makes many tasks easier and brings them closer together in tender moments. It also leads to unspeakable violence when Alan's aggressive, resentful human impulses are carried out by Ella's tiny little monkey hands. Suddenly, ex-girlfriend Janine Turner? Dead. Her new boyfriend, Stanley Tucci? Super dead. Even mom winds up on the receiving end of Ella's wrath.

Sure, Alan loses just about everyone close to him to Ella's monkey rage, but the great tragedy is that poor Ella only ever acted out of devotion. And how was she rewarded? Killed, by her own human with his own teeth and a tape deck. Is that any way to repay such loyalty?

Previously: Clyde from Every Which Way But Loose