Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

'Chimera' is an extremely short-running (4 episode) horror drama from the early 1990's.The ideas are so sinister and horrific that they might have been penned by Nigel Kneale.Set in Yorkshire, in the north of England, a supposed fertility clinic is being used as a front for inter-species experiments, using eggs and sperm from unwitting patients. The result is a chimp-human hybrid that escapes during the first episode and runs amok with a large knife in the 'clinic', eviscerating everyone it finds. So, we begin with a frightful crime, and the rest of the series entails a sinister who-done-it as to the nature and capture of the culprit.The viewer doesn't know the killer's identity, there is only a clue from a screaming, violent spectre that may or may not be human, and may or may not be sane, being bundled out of a van and into the facility.This is the kind of programme at which British television could often excel. The ideas are so vile that they grip your attention as they unfold. It's science-fiction (or it was then) it's a slasher-horror work with hints of Frankenstien, it's a who-done-it, and it's a conspiracy theory.Sadly, the programme inevitably suffers from under-funding and limited production values that have always dogged British television. Lighting, camera-work and script could all have been a lot better. Even so; the 4-hours allotted to it's presentation is just about equal to the plot threads and discovery whilst still making for a worthy watch. The beast itself is rather campy in its final denouement and might have benefited from some of today's CGI, or better still - a little of Rob Bottin's animatronic magic.Worth a watch if you can find a copy of the mini-series. An abridged movie of the same material called 'Monkeyboy' is little more than a trailer. It has all of the - now - inadequate highlights and omits most of the slowly-developing tension. Avoit the latter.

Created by the shady animal research outfit the Jenner Clinic as an unsightly malformed mutant hybrid of both human and monkey DNA, Chad (vividly played by Douglas Mann, who skillfully alternates between being quite frightening and surprisingly touching) is part man, part simian and all-nasty, a hairy, gnarled, hunch-backed toddler with the mind of a child, superhuman strength, an easily set-off temper and a murderous sociopathic disposition which makes him one seriously lethal piece of messed-up work. Chad breaks free from his cage (where the poor critter has spent his entire life), butchers nine people, trashes the laboratory where he's been secluded from the rest of the world, and goes on the lam. He's doggedly tracked by diligent sympathetic journalist John Lynch, obsessed protective scientist Christine Kavanagh, and flinty, sinister, enigmatic lab company bigwig Hennessey (a marvelously steely Kenneth Cranham), the latter a first-class baddie who's hellbent on covering up the whole bloody affair so he can continue his morally questionable experiments undeterred. Lawrence Gordon Clark's crisp, pacy direction, a knotty, thoughtful, intricately woven script by Stephen Gallagher which astutely examines a provocative science gone amok theme without ever becoming some preachy, self-righteous, heavy-handed tract (Gallagher adapted his novel "Chimera"), fine acting from a uniformly excellent cast, top-rate make-up f/x by Bob Keen, a few gory kill scenes, an elegant orchestral score, a genuinely creepy and grotesque, but strangely poignant and pitiable subhuman monster tyke, the compact, gripping narrative, a strikingly poetic and haunting conclusion, and the all-around well-drawn intriguing characters (Sebastian Shaw in particular has a lovely part as a sweet elderly scientist who unwittingly participated in Chad's creation) combine together to form a scary, suspenseful and overall superlative fright feature sleeper which not only delivers the expected spine-tingling goods, but also gives the viewer plenty of tasty food for thought to gnaw on.

MONKEY BOY is a 100-minute re-edited version of the 4-part, 208-minute CHIMERA. CHIMERA was adapted from his own novel by Stephen Gallagher, a prolific, widely-respected and internationally published UK author of fantasy and speculative fiction. It is based on first-hand research into scientific experiments on DNA manipulation, and in its original form, is one of the few pieces of genuine science-fiction writing to appear on British TV screens. CHIMERA has been transmitted several times in its original version on UK ITV. It is a fine, and very frightening piece of speculative drama, recently voted one of the 20 scariest UK TV dramas ever in a recent poll by the venerable UK listings magazine 'Radio Times'. MONKEY BOY is missing virtually the entire first hour of CHIMERA, which sets up a whole host of characters, in particular the scientists conducting the experiment combining human and chimpanzee DNA to develop a cross-species animal for further laboratory experiment and possible future use as slave labor or by the military. In a shock twist - never equalled in UK TV drama - at the end of the first hour-long episode, all but two of established characters are killed by the escaped mutant beast. The story then proceeds along an entirely new line, cross-cutting between the survivors' attempts to track down the animal, and the highly intelligent human-chimp (Chad) - a ferocious but increasingly sympathetic figure. CHIMERA articulates the debate about the use of animals in scientific experiment in a powerful, compulsive drama, which attracted many admiring reviews on its first appearance on ITV.The original has never been released on video or DVD. Sadly, MONKEY BOY remains all too available.

**** SPOILERS ****CHIMERA came out round about the same time as the BBC drama FIRST BORN which also dealt with the concept of genetically engineered apes , though to be honest they`re not really compatible since FIRST BORN was more of an emotional drama while CHIMERA is a straight up and down horror/SF thriller The plot goes something like this : A nurse turns up at a fertility clinic to start a new job but things aren`t what they seem . As the nurse is getting suspicions about the clinic , the staff , patients and eventually the nurse herself are murdered by Chad , a hybrid human . The nurse`s boyfriend tries to solve the mystery as to what happened to her Reading the above plot you might think this is a fairly entertaining thriller and it might have been but the story runs for four episodes and the above synopsis only covers the first one and a half episodes . As a matter of fact when the series was re-edited into a two hour teleplay the first hour is cut out plus another hour of running time and the story still makes sense which shows you how much padding there was in the first place After the opening episode we`re treated to sub plots like the secret service spooks wanting to keep everything under the raps and a couple of children befriending Chad who they call " Mister Scarecrow " . Strange how Chad seems to murder adults left right and centre but never harms children ? Oh as always in these type of stories we`re treated to an amiguous ending of lots of little Chads lying in incubators I guess ITV should be congratulated on trying to break the BBC`s monopoly on telefantasy but CHIMERA is very forgettable due to its over long running time and its cliches