La horripilante bestia humana

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.

I simply can't believe that "Night Of The Bloody Apes" was included in the notorious "Video Nasties" list. If you ever see it, you'll probably agree. This film is too stupid to be offensive. Oh, there is a lot of gore, to be sure, but most of the bloody sequences are so badly edited and inserted into the picture that either you don't even get a clear idea of what's going on (the heart transplant sequence, allegedly including real shots) or you simply laugh at the lame effects (the eye gouging). Terrible but fun picture, if you're in the right mood. (**)

P.S. There is also some brief but entertaining female wrestling footage.

I must disagree with other critics here. This is a marvelous Mexican exploitation movie. One problem with the translated title, however, is that there is only one ape in the movie, not two, and he dies early on after having his heart transplanted to a human. Thereafter, a man-ape assumes the role of movie-monster, so he's not fully a gorilla. Apes?? Anyway, much of the movie was made to titilate Mexican male viewers in the era of the movie's release, 1972. The ape-man has a penchant for chasing voluptuous Mexican ladies and tearing their blouse and bra off. For some reason he also likes to rip the heads off of human males. Surely this is the consequence of his animal heart! The movie also features the obligatory masked wrestling women, the heroine in this instance having almost no connection with the ape-man or his evil scientist creator, but the dialogue makes for extremely bad/funny sequences. There is much red paint splattered about and some obviously phony gore scenes. A great and good laugh for the twisted soul such as myself.

This movie has EVERYTHING. Female wrestling. Gorillas. Open-heart surgery. A crappy-looking monster. Gratuitous nudity. Ridiculously fake gore. Bad dubbing. Retarded dialogue. Atrocious editing. In other words, all the makings of a masterpiece.

When a surgeon transplants the heart of an ape into his deathly ill son, the result is, of course, a guy in a stupid-looking gorilla mask running amok and attacking hot Mexican broads. I mean, duh, what else would you expect to happen when you mess with the laws of nature, or whatever.

Meanwhile, some chick in a red catsuit wrestles other women while her boyfriend watches. No, it's not what you're thinking. She wrestles in the ring and he sits in the audience. Why does this happen? I don't really know. But her boyfriend turns out to be the detective who tries to track the Bloody Ape Man of Death, so I guess it's all right.

After the requisite number of murders, the surgeon recaptures his homicidal son and transplants a human heart back into him, taken from the body of a woman he steals from the hospital he works at. But it's all for naught: Gorilla Boy just gets back up and rips more people's heads off. More chaos ensues until the chilling denouement.

Bottom line: this movie is apparent proof that Ed Wood had Mexican relatives. Which means it's safe for you to watch this crap.

Waiter, I'll take a grilled apeburger... with extra cheese. To go!

Because I am obviously a masochist, I have subjected myself to almost the entire cinematic oeuvre of Mexican exploitation director Rene Cardona. This one might just edge out "Doctor of Doom" to receive the dubious distinction of being his best work. It's VERY gory with decapitations, eyeball-ectomies, and several scenes of real-life open-heart surgery. Like any great Mexican exploitation flick it contains both scenes of gratuitous nudity (muchas senoritas desnudas)and gratuitous wrestling (female wrestling that is--alas, no Santo). It has a mad doctor and a hilarious, mestizo version of Igor. The bizarro plot involves the mad scientist transplanting the heart of a gorilla into his dying son. The result, as any scientist might have predicted, is that the son transforms into a half-man/half-gorilla who rapes a lot of Mexican babes (somehow without removing his pants) and kills a number of people with his bare hands. This, of course, requires yet another heart transplant at which point the movie starts to get a little ridiculous. . .

Some may find this film a tad offensive, but it's funny as hell if you're in the right mood. The funniest part of all might be the English dubbing in the US version. The actor dubbing the doctor, for instance, insists on pronouncing the Spanish name of the son, Julio, with an English "J", calling him Jewel-i-o. (It never occurs to him to just anglicize the whole name and call him Julian or something). And why was the US version called "Night of the Bloody Apes" when there's really only one "ape" in the movie? All in all, this film is a valid candidate for the "So-Bad-It's-Good" Hall of Fame. A true anti-masterpiece.