Shakma
1990 film by Tom Logan
Shakma is a 1990 American natural horror film directed by Tom Logan and Hugh Parks. It stars Christopher Atkins, Amanda Wyss, Ari Meyers and Roddy McDowall battling a baboon that has been driven insane by an experimental drug. Despite all the negative reviews, the film has achieved a small cult audience.
Plot
Shakma, a hamadryas baboon belonging to medical student Sam, is injected by Sam's professor Sorensen with an experimental variation of corticotropin intended to inhibit aggression. When Shakma awakes and goes berserk, Sorensen instructs Sam to euthanize him, but Sam cannot bring himself to carry out the order and leaves Shakma unconscious. Before fellow student Richard can cremate Shakma, Sorensen insists on performing a necropsy the following day, and Shakma is left alive. That night, Sorensen organizes a live-action role-playing game for Sam and his colleagues Gary, Bradley, Richard and Tracy. The objective of the game is to reach Richard's younger sister Kim on the top floor. The players are issued walkie-talkies, which allow communication with only Sorensen, the gamemaster. As part of the game's preparation, Sorensen disables the fire alarm system and locks the offices and building to disallow any player from leaving until the end of the game.
“Shakma” enters the record as 1990 film by Tom Logan. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Shakma, film and Logan can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Shakma” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Shakma, film and Logan provides the most credible route into that argument.
Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7462963. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1990.
Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Shakma” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.