Link (1986) from Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy; Greg Wroblewski)
Tuna's comments in white: 
Link (1986) is half horror and half thriller. Student Elisabeth Shue takes a job as research assistant with a anthropology professor who works out of his remotely located home with chimps. Before long, she finds herself cut off from everyone, and alone with the chimps. The highlight of this film was the animal work, which was top-notch, but the film never really built any suspense or terror. 

Maltin says BOMB, and Tuna agrees with Maltin. 

NUDITY REPORT
Elisabeth Shue is shown nude from the back waist up, with a hint of boob, and her double, Jayne Grosvenor, is shown full length from the rear in a bath scene.
Scoopy's comments in yellow:

Nothing much to add. It's boring. Skip it, or watch the animal performances and fast forward through the humans. 

The script was written for three chimps. It was inspired by Jane Goddall's work, reported in National Geographic in 1979, which showed that chimps shared many of the worst forms of our human behavior: jealousy, bullying, and ferocious cunning. The director was persuaded to use an orangutan to play the part originally written for an old, evil chimp, simply because orangutans are easier to work with. 

Terence Stamp seems at first to be the star, then mysteriously disappears. He's an eccentric scientist who does his clandestine animal research in a remote country estate, where the isolation provides an ideal setting for the story. Shue shows up as his summer intern/assistant, the doc disappears, one chimp appears to have been murdered, and she is left in a desolate part of England with two apes, one of whom may be a killer.

DVD info from Amazon.

  • Widescreen.  1.66:1, enhanced for 16:9 TV's

  • no features except trailers
The ingredients weren't bad: deserted country estate, pretty young woman trapped with a powerful killer orangutan (who also shows some interest in inter-species sex!). Unfortunately, the original premise disintegrated into the usual "the maniac is after the woman, the boyfriend shows up" story, except that the maniac had to talk with a push-button machine instead of his vocal chords.

The main chimp was just sorta cute, but that was one smart orangutan, and his performance was the only reason to watch the film. It is one of the better animal performances ever recorded on film. 

The Critics Vote

The People Vote ...

  • With their votes ... IMDB summary: IMDb voters score it 4.9
  • With their dollars ... a failure. $2 million domestic gross. 
IMDb guideline: 7.5 usually indicates a level of excellence, about like three and a half stars from the critics. 6.0 usually indicates lukewarm watchability, about like two and a half stars from the critics. The fives are generally not worthwhile unless they are really your kind of material, about like two stars from the critics. Films under five are generally awful even if you like that kind of film, equivalent to about one and a half stars from the critics or less, depending on just how far below five the rating is.

My own guideline: A means the movie is so good it will appeal to you even if you hate the genre. B means the movie is not good enough to win you over if you hate the genre, but is good enough to do so if you have an open mind about this type of film. C means it will only appeal to genre addicts, and has no crossover appeal. D means you'll hate it even if you like the genre. E means that you'll hate it even if you love the genre. F means that the film is not only unappealing across-the-board, but technically inept as well.

Based on this description, this film is a C- (Scoopy) to D+ (Tuna). Poor film, but Scoop says "worth watching, but only for the excellent animal work, so keep your hand on the FF button when the humans are on"

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