He isn’t monkeying around anymore…
"When man was given mastery over the beasts, someone forgot to tell Link."
Link is a 1986 horror film directed by Richard Franklin, written by Everett De Roche from a story by Lee David Zlotoff and Tom Ackermann, and starring Elisabeth Shue and Terence Stamp. Jerry Goldsmith composed the score.— Tagline
Jane Chase, an American girl studying in Britain, becomes the research assistant to the eccentric Dr. Steven Phillip, her professor and noted primatologist. Setting up shop in Northfield Range, his secluded estate, she meets his subjects: chimps Imp, Voodoo, and Link, a former circus chimp known as “Link, Master of Fire,” now doubling as Phillip’s butler.
Things take a turn for the horrific when Dr. Phillip disappears, Voodoo turns up dead, and Link not only disconnects the phone line and cuts Jane off from leaving, but starts to show an all-too human interest in Jane, leading to an interspecies duel…
“Link” contains examples of the following tropes:
- An Arm and a Leg: Dennis meets his end this way, when Link reaches through the mail slot and pulls his arm through it, tearing it off.
- Antagonist Title: Link is the murderous chimp that the protagonists are up against.
- Cut Phone Lines: Link climbs onto the phone line and pulls it down, cutting Jane off from any communication.
- Disney Villain Death: Link falls into the burning house to his death when the roof collapses from under him.
- The End... Or Is It?: After Link's defeat, Jane and David pick up Imp, one of the friendlier chimps, in their car. The camera then pans out to reveal the field behind them is full of dead sheep, showing us that Imp is homicidal too.
- "Eureka!" Moment: Jane spots the switch for the gas line in the fruit cellar, and realizes that she can use Link’s love of fire and cigars against him.
- Foreshadowing:
- After freeing Imp from the well, Jane admonishes Link, asking him if throwing others in the well is how he deals with people he doesn’t like. Turns out that was exactly what he did to Dr. Phillip after he killed him, and what he does to Tom.
- Link putting his hand through the mail slot after Jane locks him out as punishment sets up how Link kills Dennis later.
- Super-Strength: Link is able to pick up one end of Bailey’s van, and would have tipped it over completely had Jane not intervened.
- Trash the Set: Northfield Range burns down spectacularly during the climax.
