Night of the Bloody Apes (1972)

Fantastic!

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Is it King Kong? Was it Kongenstein? Or the son of Tarzan and Cheetah?! Really a case of difficult resolution, but the problem is that this beastly creature is brutally murdering innocent victims in the town. A nice way to start a script for a horror movie, huh? Certainly! And leaving our 'lovely' main character aside, the film still provides us with scenes of pet theft, clandestine medicine, wrestling, more violence and goretits, that is, it contains all the necessary prerequisites for a genuine work of terror and I believe at that time many hairs were standing - and of course some girls were traumatized forever when they leave the bath! Surely this story would have the potential to stamp the cover of a Tales from the Crypt magazine and going further, the subtlety of this plot goes so far as to refer us to the tale of our supreme genius of horror Edgar Allan Poe "The Murders in the Rue Morgue", really, that was a shot of genius! Finally, it's a movie that will please true horror fans who do not care for certain frills, those who prefer pomp, hi-tech and empty ideas of ostentation... Yoohoo!! Neymar awaits you in the xXx!! Bleeeerrrrggghh ..."Depth is in the valleys where we seek it, not at the top of the mountains where it is sighted." - Auguste Dupin

Acclaimed Argentine horror director Emilio Vierya directs a script from Jack Curtis and Antonio Ross. Cheesy and ridiculous are in the mix for the method to the madness. A doctor's son is nearing his early death, until his desperate father transplants an ape's heart into his chest. As expected, things are going to get weird; when this young man turns into a mask wearing monster and roams the beaches scouting out nice looking party girls to make his slaves. When heroin is injected, his beauties become zombies. The monster summons his dazed minions with strange organ music. So bad...well...it's just bad. In the cast: Jose E. Moreno, Alberto Caneau, Mauricio De Ferraris, Gloria Prat and Gina Moret.

This is another notorious Mexican horror film: however, while the original Spanish-language version is quite tame, all sorts of gore and nudity were inserted for the English-dubbed variant (prepared by Jerald Intrator - who did similar duties on THE CURIOUS DR. HUMPP [1967/71] - and, like the U.S. version of that film, had previously been available on DVD through Something Weird/Image)! I watched the original first and, while no great shakes, it was fairly engaging - especially with a plot as familiar as this one was: a doctor goes beyond the call of duty in attempting to save the life of his terminally ill son; he even has a hulking, game-legged assistant (played by Carlos Lopez Moctezuma, who had essayed a strikingly similar role - though in a more sinister vein - in THE CURSE OF THE CRYING WOMAN [1961]). I know that several Mexican films mingled horror with the "Lucha Libre" (Wrestling) genre but I had never watched one myself; this element is present here - in fact, the heroine is a wrestler - but the two styles are, perhaps thankfully, kept apart (that said, the wrestling sequences are competently done, with some of the moves proving highly amusing).The doctor's son is transformed into a monster (looking like The Incredible Hulk with mud splashed over his face!) after having had an ape's heart transplanted into him - but, then, when this is replaced with that of a comatose female wrestler, he stays this way and grows a pair of fangs to boot (shouldn't he realistically have turned into a transsexual...though I guess that wouldn't have been very interesting)!! The climactic rooftop sequence in which the monster kidnaps a child and meets his demise at the hands of the police is reminiscent of THE GHOST OF FRANKENSTEIN (1942). My favorite unintentionally funny moments in the film, however, occur when the doctor, trying to comfort his son, tells him that he'll soon be cured - only to turn his back soon after on the verge of tears - and also the impatient look he gives his crippled assistant (as the latter staggers slowly into the car) when they're about to chase the monster who has escaped from the lab.The alternate nude scenes work for the film (these were actually done by Cardona himself for a racier Mexican version entitled HORROR Y SEXO) but its reputation is largely based on the added material showing over-the-top violence, such as an eyeball being gouged out of its socket, a scalping and even a person's head being torn off. There are also several graphic operation inserts which, however, give rise to a goof: while it's made clear that only two people are involved in the operation, we see a third pair of hands constantly holding an oxygen mask to the patient's face! The film is also said to be a loose remake of Cardona's own black-and-white horror film DOCTOR OF DOOM (1962) but, since I haven't watched that one, I can't say how much of it was actually pilfered for NIGHT OF THE BLOODY APES...

Now, this is a really obscure Mexican Horror flick. It's almost impossible to find it even in Mèxico. I don't know if it's banned but it's worth searching. This is a movie with many clichès from Mexican Horror: we get wrestlers (now that they are popular), boobs, and creepy settings.This movie has good cheesy gore. Don't expect a shocking exploitation movie. It's just an ultra low budgeter with guts.The beast is not that horrid as the title says, in fact, it's kind of cheesy (in the likes of "Night Of The Demon") , but it delivers for the movie's tone.I recommend this one for lovers of B-movies that can stand cheesiness through 90 minutes. There's some gore and violence but not enough to consider this one as exploitation.