Customer Reviews

Ape [VHS]

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I had seen 'A*P*E' on VHS years ago, and loved it immediately. Fortunately, it is now available on DVD, and it is still as rancid as ever. Filled with atrocious acting, horrible dialogue, the, without question, lamest ape costume ever, and bizarre time consuming subplots, what more could a lover of Grade Z cinema want?

'A*P*E' (I don't know what the asterisks are for) starts on a boat on which the 36 foot tall monkey is being taken to Disneyland. Contrary to the box art, this boat is not the 'Titanic'. He escapes, and immediately springs into action battling a big rubber shark. During the course of the movie he also does battle with the following: a snake; a student hang glider; a guinea pig (possibly hamster or gerbil) dressed up as a cow; the South Korean army; and some kung fu fighters armed with garden shears. Of course he falls for the only blonde in Korea; a visiting American movie star named 'Marilyn' (Hmmmmmm...), gives her some lustful eye rolls, and pursues her into Seoul. Along the way she talks to him with such amazingly bad lines as "Be gentle, big fella", which makes him positively swoon.

In the opening the producers thank the US Army, but I am thinking that after watching the pathetic "Colonel Davis" attempt to match wits with the monkey, the Army might want to reconsider future support of giant ape films. We do get to see (seemingly) hours of the same stock footage of helicopters, tanks, and soldiers advancing, which yielded an observation about the helicopters. Interspersed with stock footage of real Huey and Cobra helicopters were, of course, the plastic miniatures that A*P*E swatted at. This is probably the worst example of model use ever seen on screen, and I am including Ed Wood's flying saucers from 'Plan 9' here. The strings are clearly visible, and the helicopters apparently do not require their rotors to spin to provide lift during the battle scenes. All of which brings me to my very favorite moment of the film: after downing a helicopter, A*P*E flips the unlucky chopper crew the bird. That is the scene that will stay with me forever from this film, and just by itself makes watching 'A*P*E' worthwhile.

The movie also has lots of other bonuses scattered throughout: nightmare inducing scary Asian puppetry; repetitive Russian dance music playing loudly enough to drown out dialogue during all of Marilyn's acting scenes; revolting make-out scenes between Marilyn and 'Tom Rose' an annoying reporter who is on the spot to cover the A*P*E; and wonderful reaction shots when people stumble into the path of the 36 foot tall monkey without noticing him until they are in his paw (Marilyn specializes in this.) One further cinematic device that the director, Paul Leder, skillfully uses is having the A*P*E dance a free-form, seemingly drug induced dance throughout the entire film, including during the fight scenes. Genius, pure genius.

In summation, this movie is not to be missed by anyone who adores the absolute bottom of the barrel dregs of filmmaking. An anti-masterwork if ever there was one. It would be perfectly suitable for everyone, except for swearing, which earned it a 'PG' rating. And oh, by the way, it is totally unlike that other, better known giant ape movie. That movie was in black and white, this one is in color!

At the conclusion of the film, Tom Rose sums it up (in a very Ed Wood sounding way) thusly: "He was just too big for a small world like ours." Oh, the humanity!

Here are some facts and rumours about this crazy little movie (currently) called APE.
#1 When the film was distributed to drive-ins the title was frequently snipped out so theatre owners could call it whatever they wanted.
Often the name KING KONG or simply KONG was used in ads. This was an underhanded way of promoting the film as a KING KONG feature without paying royalties. The movie played under titles such as KING KONG GOES APE, KING KONG GOES BANANAS, KING KONG 2, SUPER KONG, SUPER KING KONG, KING KONG AGAINST THE USA,
KING KONG VERSES THE SHARK and KING KONG VERSES JAWS.
#2 It was also distributed as HIDEOUS MUTANT, 3-D MUTANT, DINOSAURUS 2 and other things. But none of the print s actually bared any of these titles in the US.
#3 According to the 1983 compilation film IT CAME FROM HOLLYWOOD!! It has also been called THE ATTACK OF THE GIANT HORNY GORILLA.
#4 Characters in the film refer to the "ape" as KING KONG in a half joking, half serious manner. Probably to confuse the audience into thinking they are watching a ligitimate KONG movie. The sarcastic delivery of said dialogue was probably to avoid a lawsuit if anyone complained.
#5 "Marilyn Baker" was supposed to be an american porn star trying to break into legitimate pictures. The final edit obscures this. (probably to get a PG rating)
#6 When promoted in 1976 It was announced that the female lead would be nude during the scenes when "APE" is holding her. I guess Joanna talked them out of it. (or maybe it was that PG thing again) I recently learned that
DeLaurentis said the same thing when promoting his remake. Probably just for publicity. No way he would have let that one out the door with anything harder than a PG rating. Or was it still GP at that time.
#7 APE was shot in 3-D. Thats why they are always throwing things at the camera (boulders) or vomiting blood at you. The foreign 3-D version is called Hideous Mutant.
#8 Some prints had the shark sequence (originally at the beginning of the film) chopped out and placed closer to the end. ( Its awful. The movie just stops at the part were he is dying and suddenly the APE is in the water at night fighting a shark. apparently the APE survives.)
#9 Yes the shark is real. However, it was already dead while the actor in the APE suit was beating it. (So, don't call the ASPCA on Jack Harris)
#10 Supposedly a prologue of the APE fighting a giant puppet spider (or crocodile depending on where you hear the story. Probably an already dead crocodile.) on an island was shot, but was not used becouse it looked too fake. So the prologue was cut out. (One wonders what the criteria for "too fake" was on this film. The spider was too fake, but the cow was considered convincing.) The prologue is said to have used stock footage dinosaurs and diving footage from Jack H. Harris' film Dinosaurus!
#11 When the furor over Delaurentis' KING KONG was over. Some places promoted APE as a sequel, KING KONG 2, in 1979 around the same time Jaws 2 and Rocky 2 where in theatres.
#12 Some posters spell the title as A*P*E, Just like M*A*S*H, to promote
the the Korean connection and the comedy aspects of the film.
#13 Some prints have the famous "ape finger" scene and the scene where Marilyn flashes her booby snipped out. (possibly TV prints, but I swear I've never come across this movie on tele. Not even once)
#14 The editors made the army convoy look bigger by editing the same loop of film together. So the trucks/tanks appear to just keep coming, when in fact its the same tank and truck shown over and over again.

"A*P*E" is one of the all-time great Bad Movies. I first read about it in some long-forgotten fantasy film magazine from the 1970's, but didn't actually see the film until it was released on VHS in the mid-90's. I proceeded to watch it twice within the next 24 hours and have since forced most of my friends to watch it at least once. "A*P*E" is an astounding example of inept filmmaking transcending its limitations to achieve a form of greatness undreamt-of by its director. The film begins with the Ape of the title escaping from the ship which is transporting it from its island home. (Sound familiar? It isn't the last "King Kong" reference you'll hear, as the movie clearly tries to capitalize on the then-upcoming remake of "Kong.") The Ape then encounters a great white shark and the viewer is treated to slow-motion footage of a man in a shoddy ape suit thrashing about in a tank of water with a very dead shark. These sequences are howlers; deliriously bad. But the beauty of "A*P*E" is that the film gets geometrically worse, climaxing in a mind-numbingly horrible confrontation between the Ape and the South Korean army. If you like Ed Wood movies; if you covet your DVD of "Attack of the Giant Leeches"; if Doris Wishman is your idol; then you will adore "A*P*E"!

This film is so pathetic, it's a marvel that the crew remembered to take the cap off the camera lens. I can't help, but laugh at the Ape vs. Shark moment. This is what Ed Wood Jr. would have done if he'd had a chance to rip off King Kong. I can almost hear Johnny Depp as Ed directing the guy in the monkey suit to shake the giant rubber shark - make it look fierce! The fake cow moment is also a classic in Wood-ism. It's a shame they didn't hire the same guy who drew the poster to design the effects. The poster is boss.

Well no matter how bad the effects in Dino's Kong got, he could always watch Ape and know he didn't go that cheap.

This is the movie Peter Jackson should have remade.

Plus a very young Joanna Kerns almost gets me to believe that bad furry hand belongs to the ape and not a mardi gras float.

I am one of the few humans able to say they saw this piece of trash in theaters in 3D no less! My Dad worked for a movie distributor, so we saw a lot of movies in the 70's for free! Some great, some not so great.
A*P*E is so awful words do it no justice. I can't believe it's on DVD so I had to waste money on the DVD for the laughs and memories.
An abomination, this Korean/American co-production is a total ripoff of King Kong and was released a mere few months before Paramount's big budget borefest King Kong came out in 1976. Deservedly, the idiots behind this "
production" were sued when ads and posters stated this was the New King Kong or something like that.
Of course the film itself deserves 0 stars, but c'mon, this played theaters! Could never happen today. The ape sums it up when, after crashing a plane, he turns around and gives us the finger. I am both ashamed and proud to have seen this pile of gorilla droppings on the big screen. By the way-Image actually did the best they could with restoring this movie which was shot using very cheap stock film. The audio is still absymal, but do you really care?
A*P*E!!!

The movie is laughable inept so don't expect too much. It offers less special effects than most Godzilla movies but if you're a fan of Joanna Kerns, I believe this is her only "nudity" though frankly, it's not much, during a medium shot in an attempt to seduce someone in a lab she pulls open her blouse revealing her see-through bra. Keep in mind that it's a medium shot and the print is not exactly pristine so it's not much but this might qualify as her only nude scene so there's your reason to view this film.

When A*P*E* first arrived in 1976, it was shown in 3D and was a great escapist film at a time when one could go to a neighborhood theater and see 2 movies for one price. And NO extra charge for 3D movies. In fact, no extra charge for other special effects such as surround sound and all 3D movies both new and old were available for the same price as the other moivies. I believe I saw A*P*E in 3D along with Dial M for Murder and an old 3d Three Stooges short. Ah, those were the days!

I have to admit, I love this terrible movie! I have owned it for a couple of months now, and have probably watched it a half-dozen times, it's that bad (and by bad, I really mean good, but I'm sure you have already figured that out).
I could go through every surreal moment for you, but many, many of the other reviewers have already done that. In fact, the best advice I could give is to not read any of the other reviews (if you haven't already) and just buy the silly thing used. I can only imagine how much more enjoyable this thing would have been for me had I not known what to look for and just experienced it on my own.
Still reading? Well, alright, I guess I could comment on a couple of things.
First of all, this movie is a perfect combination of intentional and unintentional laughs. Bad acting and bad effects will make you shake your head and chuckle, but there are also times when it's obvious the director actually intented to make you laugh. Adding to the fun is the fact that it was originally shot in 3-D, old school 3-D, you know, when they actually like to throw stuff at the camera to try and scare you. Priceless.
Secondly, this has to be the worst actor to ever wear a giant creature suit and stumble around a set. Some reviewers have mention that APE dances throughout the whole movie, but after watching it a few times I'm convinced that the actor just didn't know how to react, so he just waved his arms and moved around alittle bit, and it kind-of looks like he's dancing. After watching this I have a newfound respect for the men that wear the Godzilla suits, those boys can act!
So there you have it, a movie so bad it's good, with even more "What the ....??" moments than Ed Woods classic disasterpiece "Plan 9 from Outer Space". Buy it on the cheap and it will keep you entertained on a lazy Sunday afternoon or be the conversation piece at your next party. But because of the bad langauge and a few adult themes, don't show it to the kiddies.

I remember wanting to see this when it came out as it was released right after the 1976 "King Kong" remake and apparently meant to ride the better films coat tails. What puzzles me most about this clunker is that with the size of the cast and the number of locations, this film obviously had an above modest budget. Now I can handle an actor in a monkey suit stomping around model train villages. Seeing however, a ship in what appears to be a bathtub sized puddle, a wrestling match with a clearly rubber and lifeless shark and a camera that fixes way too long on a 1/25th sized toy cow, one has to wonder why the South Korean producers of this turkey could not pony up a few thousand more bucks to make something a little more believable.

That's right. I saw this movie when I was 6 years old, in 1976 during a snowy night, at the Leo Mall in Philadelphia, and in 3-D! I haven't seen this movie in 31 years until tonight. I wish it was in 3-D still. Then again, I also wish I was skinny with more hair. Things change. But I still love this movie. And now I can appreciate how utterly bad it is. If this movie were a real ape, it would throw its own poop at itself, and love doing it. I couldn't praise this movie more.