Ape

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.

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.

When people are talking about the best King Kong themed movies, it's not often anyone remembers this woeful effort. Filmed in Korea as a USA/Korean production, it makes a nice change to see a new location in a monster movie beside Tokyo or New York. That doesn't make up for the rest of the many failed aspects of the film, though. At least it had a cracking poster...just look at all the action going on in that cover! And yes - you will see giant sharks, snakes and helicopter battles depicted, but very badly. Legend has it that no trailers ever existed for "APE"...and when you see the film itself, the reasons for that become quite clear.

"APE" starts with a boat chugging through the darkness. Two crew members muse over how the giant ape they have captured and stored in the hold is headed for Disneyland...hows that for a neat way to avoid all the expense of showing the discovery and capture of the monster in some exotic location? However, it's all about to go pear-shaped because APE (I'm going to call him that in lieu of the script referring to him by any name in particular), promptly breaks free from captivity and leaps into the sea, which somehow causes the boat to explode - or rather a small plastic model boat explodes. As APE swims to freedom he encounters a giant shark and a hilarious wrestling match ensues as we watch a guy in a cheap monkey suit (for that is APE) fling and shake around a limp, dead shark for about 5 solid minutes.

After victory, APE reaches the shore and begins to destroy the beachside village. This is the first of many "destruction" scenes of the film and it illustrates the film's two main weaknesses...firstly, the model miniatures are not actually that bad when first seen, but they break apart like flimsy cardboard when APE starts bashing them. And if you think the model buildings are poor, wait untill you see the model vehicles later on. Secondly, the village seems to be totally deserted, except for two (count 'em!) shots of terrified extras rushing about and pointing at the sky. Now, if "APE" the movie was ever going to work it would have had to have shown, at least at some point, it's lead monster in the same frame as some real human beings. But it never does. All the scenes with APE smashing stuff up are filmed totally seperately from any scene featuring live actors. There's not a single shot in the film where monkey and human share the frame - I know, I was looking for one! And if a monster movie cannot do that, then it is doomed.

Anyway, moving on, there is a bit more to the plot than just destruction, as APE develops a crush on a blond actress called Marilyn who is in town along with her reporter boyfriend. The remainder of the film revolves around APE's rampage, his abduction of the girl, and her eventual rescue and APE's downfall. But even this small plot is difficult to stick with, as all the important scenes have no build-up, pacing or tension. The director seems to have no conception of cinematic language, as reaction shots, connecting shots and establishing shots are virtually non existant. Its just a parade of images and dialogue. I could go on about the whole cavalcade of bad effects that litter the movie, but there are just too many to mention. Some will really have you chuckling, (in one scene APE encounters a cow in a field, represented by monkey-suit guy stepping over an unbelievable toy cow, static except for a wagging tail) while others, sadly will just bore or annoy you (the many shots filmed for the film's original 3-D screening come into this category, as APE flings rocks that wobble straight towards the camera on wires, and badly directed extras point long-barrelled rifles "right at you"!...over and over again). In fact repetition is a major problem here, especially in the footage of army reinforcements arrivng that must eat up ten whole minutes of screen time. That and a ridiculous scene in which Marilyn tries to soothe two Korean children by helping their mother perform a puppet show while APE looms closer outside...there's only one puppet and it doesn't really do much, but the children are shown in protracted fits of giggling in shot after shot as Marilyn wiggles the strings while at the same time glancing nervously out of the window...it's extended so much it becomes almost a surreal experience.

To put things in perspective, some degree of work really did go into making this. Someone obviously spent a lot of time building the many miniature sets for APE to trash, it's a shame that no corresponding full size versions of the miniatures are ever seen with any real actors in them. Also on the note, the camera work on any effects scenes is awful. The normal shots with the actors are bad enough, but the framing during any "action" sequences is terrible, the camera seems incapable of framing the important parts of the shot correctly. Most noticeable is when APE has picked up the blond actress...she's scarcely held in shot half the time, and even though it's just some moth-eaten prop hand that she's in, they don't seem able to get her centre frame. I will add one other compliment, though. The acting in this movie does not sink as low as the effects, in fact the leads Rod Arrants and Joanna Kerns acquit themselves pretty well, and even their romantic scenes are handled without too much cheesiness. The assorted Korean actors also do quite well, in fact the only real ham if the film is Alex Nicol as Colonel Davis.

This is definitely a party movie, so bring some friends and laugh your way through it. But keep some other form of entertainment handy too, because you may find that boredom creeps in due to the constant repetition and inability of the director to edit all the wildly different types of footage into an overall film with any sign of narrative flow.

There should be two kinds of reviews. One for movies you like but that are bad, and one for movies that are not bad enough to fall into that category. This movie sucks, so it falls into the former. It sucks so badly, though, you might actually enjoy it. But by any objective criterion, it is truly horrible. And thus one star.