Anyone who knows me knows I love gorillas. I have a collection of rubber gorilla toys from the 70s on. I own a gorilla suit (2 actually). I especially love gorilla movies, and since 1933s King Kong there have been plenty of remakes and knock offs. Some great, some bad, but since they have a gorilla in them, I cannot resist.
And since we have been in this global pandemic, one of the best ways to pass the time in isolation has been to watch B-Movies and experience them with friends over the phone-which in lieu of a face-to-face meeting has been very fun!
Recently I watched a Kong knock off called: A*P*E. I have seen posters and artwork from this Korean-American film from 1976, rushed into production to compete with what I think is an excellent Kong movie, the Dino De Laurentis remake from that same year. I have always wanted to see this film, but it never really had the opportunity, that is, until now.
See A*P*E. Actully, don’t bother!
Now I have seen some good Kong knock offs and some very very bad ones. This one falls in the latter category. The Ape is clearly a guy in a suit, even has cuffs on the arms where the fur shirt meets the gloves. Even my crappiest gorilla suit looks better than this thing. And the fights, oh man, these are really bad. He fights a “giant snake” and you can tell its just a normal sized snake. They also have the Ape fight a shark, but it just looks like a guy doing his laundry at night in a river. The effects are super cheap.
A*P*E is not the worst Kongish movie out there, but its probably the second worst. Filmed in 3D this movie has some obvious 3D shot setups but viewing it streaming you never see the “cool factor”. I don’t mind when I see strings on special effects, but The end of the clip above, APE flips off the helicopter, or was it, in reality, the audience?
Doesn’t this look exciting? Sorry, it’s not.