Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Richard Franklin
Starring: Elisabeth Shue, Terence Stamp, Steven Pinner,
Kevin Lloyd, David O'Hara
Following the success of King Kong in the 1930s, a wave of
movies featuring simian villains arrived, though they were generally played
unconvincingly by men in gorilla costumes. Then in the late '80s came a
small crop of horror movies with ape antagonists -
In the Shadow of Kilimanjaro;
Monkey Shines; Shakma - but by this point the art of animal wrangling had
become so sophisticated that real monkeys could be employed in the roles.
The best of this brief wave of simian cinema was Richard Franklin's
1986 thriller Link, now newly restored in 4K.
A fresh-faced Elisabeth Shue plays Jane (see what they did there?),
an American zoology student who agrees to spend her summer living with
anthropology professor Steven Phillip (Terence Stamp) in his remote
home on the English coast (such a setup would not fly today).
The peppy Yank
and the grumpy Brit aren't alone however, as Steven lives with three chimps
whom he has been studying. Voodoo is an aggressive female on her last legs.
Imp is a highly intelligent young chimp who enjoys eating cats but is
friendly with humans. The eponymous Link is a 45-year-old former circus
attraction and the cleverest of the bunch, but he's getting a little doddery
in his old age.
When Steven mysteriously disappears, Jane is left alone with the chimps,
and discovers the corpse of Voodoo, seemingly killed by Link. Worried for
her safety, Jane attempts to leave, but with no car available is forced to
turn back when she encounters the wild dogs that roam the area. Can Jane
survive until Steven's return, if he is ever to return at all?
Franklin certainly has his fans, but he's one of the most under-rated
filmmakers of his generation and was largely unappreciated while working.
Against all odds he made an excellent sequel to
Psycho
in 1983, which should have propelled him into the A-list of Hollywood
filmmakers, but instead he found himself working in b-movies. Hollywood's
loss was the gain of those of us who scoured video store shelves for low
budget gems like Link. A Hitchcock obsessive (his masterpiece is his 1981 thriller
Roadgames, which reworks Rear Window as a road movie),
Link is Franklin's attempt at replicating
The Birds. While it's not in the same league as Hitchcock's film, it's nevertheless
a fun woman versus beast thriller.
Link benefits greatly from Franklin's skill as a director and
student of Hitchcock. Franklin makes great use of the single location
setting, establishing the geography of the locale in a way that benefits the
extended set-piece that closes the film, as Jane is menaced and chased
through the house by a deranged Link. We always know where Jane is in
relation to her pursuer, which helps amp up the suspense as Franklin drains
every last drop of tension out of a scenario that could well have produced
ironic laughs if mishandled.
Yes, Link has a rather silly premise (reflected in the
ill-fitting score by Jerry Goldsmith, who doesn't seem to have
understood the tone Franklin was aiming for here) but Franklin plays it with
a straight face and by the end of the first act any ironic guffaws you might
have initially produced will have faded away as you become invested in the
plight of Jane. Shue is excellent as the wide-eyed innocent, convincing us
initially of her affection for Link and later her unmitigated fear of the
beast. Stamp is at his most sinister and charming as a man who we're never
quite sure is a harmless eccentric or a demented Baron Frankenstein.
But the real star of Link is Locke, the orangutan whose fur
was dyed black to give him the appearance of a chimp (yeah, they aren't
fooling anyone). If there's a better animal performance I've yet to see it.
Locke is staggeringly good here - it's fascinating to see him transform from
loveable old duffer to genuinely terrifying stalker, and I'm not joking when
I say that Locke's performance is a better version of Jack Nicholson's in
The Shining. 90% of acting is in the eyes, and the way Locke uses his eyes to subtly
shift expression is eerily impressive - a few human actors could do with
studying his turn! If you watch Michael Caine's famous masterclass on acting
for the screen and then watch Franklin's film, you'll note that Locke is
doing everything Caine advised.
Locke's performance is enhanced by Franklin's understanding of the Kuleshov
effect (the idea that a juxtaposition of images can convince an audience of
a character's emotional state) as he cuts from the ape's passive face to the
terrified Shue, who genuinely appears to be shitting herself in the monkey's
presence in a couple of moments, none more so than an awkward bathroom
encounter.
Falling somewhere between the psychological thriller of
Monkey Shines and the trashy fun of Shakma, Link is the ultimate mad monkey movie, a product of an era
when no premise was considered too ridiculous for an audience desperate to
feed our hungry VHS players.
Feature commentary by film historian Lee Gambin and critic Jarret Gahan; interview with film programmer and horror expert Anna Bogutskaya; deleted
scenes; audio interview with Richard Franklin; Jerry Goldsmith demo of the
Link theme; original UK theatrical trailer.
Link (4k restoration) is on UK
DVD, blu-ray and Digital from February 1st.