Dorothy Mann

**Dorothy Mann** is the secondary antagonist of the 1988 horror film *Monkey Shines*. She is the mother of Allan Mann.

She was portrayed by Joyce Van Patten.

## Biography

After her Son Allan is hit by a truck and the surgery to save him leaves him paralyzed from the neck down, Dorothy is shown hosting a party for him to start his new life. She has hired a live in nurse named Maryanne Hodges to look after them. Later, she, Allan and Maryanne watch home movies of Allan's childhood. She mentions the neighbors Allan liked and that they moved away because Dorothy worked in real estate and sold their house. However, while liking Allan and his father, the neighbors actually hated Dorothy and moved to get away from her. Dorothy isn't seen until later, after Allan's failed suicide attempt, due to being unable to do anything and due to Maryanne actually being very lazy and uncaring to him and more focused on her stupid pet Budgie Bogey. When Dorothy meets with Dr. John Wiseman, the neurosurgeon who saved Allan's life after his accident, She tells him that she has plans to move in to Allan's house to help him. However, Wiseman tells her not to as it would only make Allan's situation worse.

Dorothy appears later after Allan had been given a Helper Monkey named Ella, who is secretly being used as part of an experiment by his Scientist Friend Geoffrey Fisher. During this visit, Maryanne angrily accuses Allan and Ella of killing Bogey. While Allan denies having done so and believes that Ella was in her cage, his anger is brought out due to Ella's prescience and the experiment, with him spitefully telling Maryanne he doesn't care and that the bird deserved to die, deeply upsetting Maryanne and horrifying Dorothy. It turns out the previous night that Allan and Maryanne got into a fight about Ella, Bogey attacked him in his bed. When Allan demanded that Maryanne get rid of her bird she refused. Ella tapped into Allan's thoughts, escaped her cage, quietly snuck into Maryanne's room, discreetly opened Bogey's cage, murdered him in cold blood via neck snap and placed him into one of Maryanne's slippers. That night while Dorothy bathes Allan, she tells him that Maryanne is quitting, having called last week and that she will be moving in to his house to took look after him she has sold her home in Illinois and her Business to do so, showing that she deliberately disobeyed Wiseman's instruction. Allan clearly doesn't want Dorothy there, but she is insists on it and that she will "respect his privacy". While Dorothy isn't looking and due to his resentment toward her, Allan sees his right hand move on its own. When he tells Dorothy and asks if she saw it, she thinks he's imagining it. Allan then angrily shouts at her asking if she saw it, she says it didn't and it can't. Then she rudely tells Allan she doesn't like they way he's behaving.

Later in the film, she receives a phone call, learning that Wiseman and Allan's ex-girlfriend Linda Aikmen, who left him for being quadriplegic where killed in a fire. It turns out upon seeing his right hand move on it's own, Allan and his new girlfriend Melanie Parker, a specialist in quadriplegia and helper monkeys, who helped in training Ella, visit another Neurosurgeon, Doctor Williams. Allan explained that he saw his hand move and told Wiseman via phone call, who said it's impossible. Williams told Allan that he should always get a second opinion on that. He revealed that Wiseman is overconfident, and that he sometimes misses things. Williams showed Allan that his quadriplegia wasn't caused by being hit by a truck, but by a congenital problem with another one of his vertebrae, which Wiseman failed to notice in surgery. Williams explained that this congenital problem could be fixed through spinal surgery, which would allow Allan to walk again, but he'd need to run some more tests since that kind of surgery was risky. Furious with Wiseman for his incompetence, Allan calls him with help from Ella to tell him of his blunder. When he learns that Wiseman is out of town and won't be back until Monday, Allan says it's an emergency and the receptionist begins to tell Allan the number of where Wiseman can be reached. However, upon hearing some of the number and saying the rest for himself, he realizes that Wiseman and Linda are in a relationship, filling him up with rage. Allan has Ella contact Linda and when Wiseman answers after having sex with Linda, Allan says nothing. When Wiseman hangs up, he and Linda resume kissing. Allan's rage gets into Ella through their telepathic bond and it results in her making her way to Linda's cabin and killing both Wiseman and Linda as they're having sex. Having seen this through Ella's eyes, Allan believes it to be a bad dream, but when Dorothy begins to tell Allan what had happened, he quickly Realizes it was real and upon seeing a bit of a bush in Ella's cage realizes that she did it. Allan Tells Geoffrey to take Ella back to his lab and explains to him and Melanie about his uncontrollable rage and horrible thoughts. Not wanting his experiment to be a failure, but seeing how upset Allan is, Geoffrey takes Ella back to his lab.

After Allan and Melanie spend the weekend together, they meet with Doctor Williams again. Williams tells Allan that spinal surgery to allow him to move again is risky as he needs proof that Allan can make a voluntarily movement with one of his limbs, even if it's only a finger or a toe. If Allan can make that Voluntary movement then Williams will agree to operate on him. When Allan returns home, Dorothy is angry at him as she didn't know where he was all weekend and tried to call him 12 times with no response for each. Allan says he and Melanie decided not to Answer the phone. After Melanie Kisses Allan goodbye, She says "hi" to Dorothy and asks her how she is today, only for Dorothy to angrily glare at her in contempt. She doesn't even thank Melanie for Looking after Allan. Later, Allan asks Dorothy if she heard from Geoffrey as he has Ella. Dorothy Tells Allan Geoffrey can keep Ella for all she cares, showing she actually hates the monkey. Allan reveals he asked Geoffrey to do so, causing Dorothy to erroneously believe that Ella did something bad to Melanie and that she asked Allan to get rid of her. Dorothy then nastily says "You do anything *she* asks in a minute.", showing that she completely despises Melanie. Eventually, Ella gets out of Geoffrey's lab and goes back to Allan’s house. While Allan is being bathed by Dorothy and telling her about the possibility of being able to move on his own again and asking for support on that and his relationship with Melanie, Dorothy says in a displeased tone that it's fine with her.

However, due to Ella's prescience, Allan's anger comes out again and he shouts at Dorothy for lying to him. When he realizes Ella's there, he tries to tell Dorothy what's happening but Dorothy doesn't believe him then rudely tells him that if he can't stand having her there just to tell her and she'll go. When the phone rings, Dorothy goes to answer it and Allan calls to her that if it's Melanie to hell her that Ella's there and to come right away. However, Dorothy instead tells Melanie that Allan's in the bath tub and is going to bed and to call him tomorrow in the daytime, then hangs up. Ella, having grown to mutually hate Dorothy had witnessed it. As Allan is put into bed, he apologizes to Dorothy and says that he's afraid and wants her to understand that she's in great danger. Dorothy on the verge of crying says she understands and was never willing to accept it, believing he's ungrateful for her "help" and prefers Melanie instead. When Allan tries to explain Dorothy interrupts yelling "Do you have ANY idea how much you made me cry?! "Do you have any idea worthless you made me feel?! How alone?!".

After crying a bit she angrily shouts "I've given up EVERYTHING FOR YOU!", which Allan, now unable to control his rage tells her off. She doesn't care about him or anybody else: she only cares about herself and that her life is nothing but an empty greedy black hole and that she's been trying to suck him in to it for as long as he can remember. He then furiously tells his mother he can't stand her anymore and ends his rant by calling her a conniving, clinging blood-sucking bitch, causing her to slap him out of an anger reflex. Out of Ella's Influence, Allan tries to apologize only, for a now furious Dorothy to deliberately and violently slap him multiple times. Once she is finished, Allan is again under Ella's influence, menacingly Telling Dorothy that she deserves what ever she gets and that he hates her. When he hears Ella's growling he tries to warn Dorothy, but she's frightened of him and runs to the bathroom. Dorothy then takes a bath, still hurt over Allan's revelation of her. When he calls Dorothy to warn her of Ella's prescience, she intentionally ignores him, showing that she has disowned him. What Dorothy doesn't realize is that Ella has made her way into the bathroom and Allan can see from her point of view. Ella then hopes up to the sink and takes Dorothy's hair dryer, which is plugged into the wall. When Dorothy hears a noise and attempts to look, Ella angrily pops up and before Dorothy can react, throws her plugged in hair dryer into the bath tub electrocuting her to death.

### Aftermath

Dorothy's body is then found by Geoffrey, who feels completely guilty and tells Allan about his mother's death. Allan feels guilty, believing that he killed his mother and the others. Geoffrey then tells Allan the truth about Ella. Naturally, Allan is furious at Geoffrey for lying to him and being a guinea pig to him this whole time. Even though Geoffrey insists that he was trying to help at the beginning, Allan doesn't believe him. Geoffrey ends being killed by Ella by being injected with the same poison he intended to use on her. When Melanie Comes to check on Allan, Ella trips her into unconscious and tries to light her on fire, but being too wet from a rain storm makes it impossible so Ella decides to poison her with another syringe that Geoffrey brought with him. As Ella attempts to inject Melanie, Allan is able to summon the strength to move his right arm and engage his tape deck with romantic music that Ella likes, summoning her to cuddle close to him. When Ella is under Allan's head, Allan bites her in the neck and kills her by thrashing his head back and forth in a violent manner, snapping her neck before finally relinquishing his bite and throwing her corpse into his tape deck. Later, Allan undergoes a successful spinal surgery that gives him his body back, with Williams taking charge. While resting after the operation, Allan has a nightmare that he flatlines and Ella leaps out of his back while Williams is making an incision. When Allan wakes up, Melanie reveals that the surgery was successful. Having regained his ability to move, Allan and Melanie leave the hospital together.

## Personality

Dorothy was a selfish and manipulative woman with no regard for anybody's interests or feelings but her own. She moved into Allan's home without his consent in order to dominate him. She was also a complete hypocrite as she wanted to be the only one looking after Allan and nobody else, yet earlier in the film, she hired the lazy and uncaring Maryanne Hodges as his nurse. If she had lived, she would've kicked Allan out of his own home after his rant.