User reviews

This is a great bad movie and many of the scenes are hilarious. If you'd enjoy watching a 60-sec slow-motion scene where a guy in a gorilla costume wrestles an obviously dead shark, thrashing it around and pretending to be in the throes of death, look no further. This whole movie is full of great scenes like that, and if it weren't for an overly drawn out love story subplot, "A.P.E." would be a 5-star unintentional comedy. You get a little bit of everything in this South Korean flick: "Godzilla"-style miniature sets, toy model animals and people, remote control helicopters, firework explosions, and of course, a guy in a gorilla suit. The plot is not important, really, and the film gets right down to brass tacks after about 2-min of backstory. Just know that there is a 35-ft tall ape, and he is going to rampage Korea. Throw in an American actress (Joanna Kerns, of "Growing Pains" fame), her reporter boyfriend, and a pair of Army officers bent on killing the beast, and you have "A.P.E." The direction and editing are sometimes stunningly inept, resulting in several great "WTF moments," including my favorite when a character is hanging off the outside door of a moving jeep, for seemingly no reason. Anyhow, I could go on forever with this one. As far as bad movies go, "A.P.E." is a definite keeper. You are going to get laughs out of this one.

Truly awful King Kong rip-off that is so bad you have to see it to believe it. The ape, said to be thirty-six feet tall, is just some guy in a cheap gorilla suit that the filmmakers got at a costume shop or a yard sale. This isn't even a full body ape suit. It's got sleeves with gloves. There are several instances where you can see the skin of the guy's wrists as he moves his arms about. That's the level of quality we're talking here. That's how few *beeps* this movie gives. He's filmed mostly from the chest up. When they do try to show you some scale for the ape's size, they do it with cheap stuff like toy boats and crummy miniature buildings. The ape also moves in slow motion throughout the movie. Let me be clear: they didn't slow down the film. The "actor" in the ape suit just moved really slowly to emulate slow motion! Like a kid playing make believe.

The cast is especially bad. This is the film debut of Joanna Kerns, the mom from "Growing Pains." Her screams will haunt me for weeks. So unbelievably shrill. Be prepared to turn your volume down. Laughably, at one point while in the palm of the ape's hand, Kerns stops screaming and says "Be gentle with me, big guy." She returns to screaming almost immediately. Bizarre! Kerns has a romantic subplot with a very '70s-looking guy named Rod Arrants. They kiss a lot. Pretty much every time they are in the same scene, Arrants is all over her. Long-time character actor Alex Nicol plays a foul-mouthed Army Colonel here. I have to believe his performance is intended to be funny. It makes no sense any other way. Bruce MacRae is listed as responsible for the music. He should have been arrested and charged with assault. The score is relentless and will make your ears bleed.

As the helicopters approach the ape, he stands there and makes these wild gestures with his arms. For the life of me, it looks a lot like he's dancing. Was the guy in the ape suit inebriated? Very likely. Further evidence of this is the scene where the ape flips off the Army. Yeah. The guy in the ape suit was loaded for sure. It's so terrible. There are lots of pointless scenes. Such as when the ape pulls a snake off of a tree and throws it -- hitting the camera! This goes nowhere. It just cuts away to another scene and when it returns to the ape he's moved on to something else. The only reason I'm giving this a 2 instead of a 1 is because of the unintended comedy. It's one of the worst movies ever made.

This movie is so terrible, yet so funny. There are so many flaws with this movie. Many parts of the movie have nothing to do with the plot. The ape one time wears shoes, flicks the camera(and its no accident, he holds it for 4 seconds), and seems to be different sized throughout the movie. You cannot make a worse movie. Period. This movie must be seen, it is too funny to explain.

This movie hates you. No two ways about it. It wants to hurt you for seeing it.

Characters in this movie speak in a stream of continual profanities, fire flaming arrows and guns at the audience (while smiling), and the gorilla throws rocks at you and flips you the bird.

The acting is mostly abominable. The effects are worse. Nothing makes much sense. The editing is choppy. The shots are poorly composed. The locations are grey, barren, and aggressively ugly. Stock footage is piled on and looped.

Boring filler is shoved in wherever it will fit to pad out the slight story to 90 minutes. Then, it takes forever to finally end. (More punishment for you, the viewer.) Oh, and it's nominally in 3-D too.

A hateful, hateful movie.

Watch in horror as the A*P*E Mercilessly attacks the same building in 5 different shots, and then sometimes the same shot repeated later in the film. Marvel at the special effects as foam pieces fly off the "rocks" that fall toward the same three men also repeated about five times. Become engrossed in the finely developed characters, and their emotional dialogue like "Just too big for a small world like ours," or "Lets see him dance for his organ grinder now!"

If the makers of this film were serious, I'll be a monkey's uncle, haha. But seriously, you'll have an ape of a time(I don't even think people say that one). I'm not monkeying around; you'll go bananas!

Important note: you can see the head part of the ape costume moving seperately from the rest of the costume and you don't even have to be looking.

Here's what I really think: It's bad, oh boy is it ever, especially the repeated stock footage and footage from other movies, and the 3 minutes, LITERALLY 3 MINUTES, of time wasted by showing children playing with a puppet. There is a shot of firemen rushing through the supposedly panic-stricken city but look closely(or not so closely you can still see it); In the background you can see people shopping. Let's not forget the ending (don't worry, you won't care if I tell you how it ends) which is 15 minutes of tanks shooting, soldiers running up to the camera looking into it, and then shooting 3 or 4 rounds out of a rifle I'm certain only holds one round(I don't know anything about guns, but it had the handle dealy on the side that you cock to load and unload). All this while the ape disco dances which I suppose is him being shot and reacting, but I would think that all that firepower and he would probably run away. Then the ape dies. You can tell it's going to happen too, because after what seems like hours of being shot in the head and chest, the A*P*E vomits blood. These things are the reason to watch the movie. I'm not exaggerating when I say A*P*E is one of the funniest films of all time.

Nowhere near as good as "Mighty Peking Man" as far as King Kong rip-offs, "Ape" is good to look at just to see the fair miniatures and little else. The best "bad" hilarious movies are those that never intended to be that; in "Ape", the Ape gets mad gives the finger in one scene, obviously in a deliberate attempt for laughs, which in turn, makes it pretty unfunny.

The sound effects are BAD, there's a decent 'bad' fight with a giant shark which couldn't look much more fake if they tried, plus the Ape trashes a few buildings. If you are a giant monster film fan, this probably won't get more than a few viewings in your entire lifetime but it's good to watch and take off your list of films to see, plus to examine how badly this one was made. All in all, some fun, but pretty bad.

Okay, going into this film, I knew it had a reputation as one of the worst films of all time. But I like good, ole cheesy monster movies. In fact, if it had a first run presentation in the 1970's, I'm very surprised I missed it then. Anyway, I finally caught up with it. And, guess what? It IS one of the worst movies I've ever seen. Usually, something stands out: effective acting, great miniatures or special effects, nifty dialogue, music, scenery, or just a general feeling of fun. This has almost nothing. Admittedly, Joanna Kerns does give a spirited performance, and you can see a glimmer of the solid comedic style she developed later. But, that's it. Even the monster is bad. Not laughingly bad, which is sometimes enjoyable... just bad, with unexplainable movements and no expression. If someone suggests you watch this movie, just say NO.

When "King Kong" was being remade in the mid-70's, a Korean company decided to cash in on the remake and produce their own version, in 3-D yet!!! Yeah, that'll show DiLaurentiis a thing or two. As bad as the Kong remake is, "A*P*E" is considerably worse. He's just another man in a monkey suit smashing cardboard sets and doing battle with a toy-tank army while clutching the pretty blonde heroine (Joanna Karns of "Growing Pains", then going by the name Joanna De Varona, and who can blame her for changing her name after this one). There is an embarrassment of riches here, but my favorite is where the army is shooting missiles at the big monkey, and he (and I am not making this up) GIVES THEM ALL THE FINGER!!!!! After having endured an hour and a half of this turkey, I leaned toward that sentiment myself.

Well, I just had the good fortune to see this movie on the big screen in glorious 3D(although my 3d glasses kept falling off of my regular glasses) and must say that all of the previous posts(with exception of the person who gave it like 9 stars) just did not get this movie and never will. Yes it is bad, terribly bad. Yes the acting sucks etc. Did this detract from my enjoyment of the film? Not a whit. I can imagine that in 2d on a TV the charm could be significantly diminished but in its original 3d glory this is not to "B" missed . I cant fathom all of the bad posts from folks who claim to like this genre of movies. I mean look at the godzilla movies that were coming out at this time frame, pure cheese! Yet I love them just the same! If your idea of a giant monster movie is the Hollywood godzilla or the peter jackson king kong then by all means please skip this. If on the other hand you wish peter jackson would take his next million dollars and sink it into a remake of meet the feebles then you might get a few chuckles out of this movie.

The first time I watched this, I was so tired at the time, nothing made sense. This movie was no exception. I didn't even get the chance to finish it, I guess I just fell asleep. Well, I watched it again last night and it STILL doesn't make sense! None at all! It's just far too badly done. There are too many mistakes to list, so i won't even attempt to, all I want to know is if the film makers were serious when they made this movie. Because if they were, I pity them. I could make a better movie and look at me. I'm only 16! Ayy yay yay yay!

One out of many things that really bothered me in this movie was the monster. Now, I got over the whole fact that it is blatantly a man in a monkey suit, but some of the things that stuck around and I couldn't get out of my head were the fact that:

1.) The Ape flipped off the camera! What? Last time I checked, Apes don't intentionally flip off cameras or anybody else for that matter.

2.) At one point when the Ape was stomping a village by a mountain, the Ape was wearing high top tennis shoes. Tennis shoes!!!! No, I'm sorry Mr. Film director, Apes don't wear tennis shoes. Please, if you are going to make a movie, and it involves the portrayal of a wild animal with a human in an animal suit, remember, wild animals don't wear clothing. That's just a little fact of life of which everyone needs to be aware.

This was a terrible movie. But not too terrible in a bad way. It was more terrible in a good, funny way. It was fun to watch, it was easy to make fun of, it was an experience to remember. Movies cannot be made this bad on purpose, they are accidents. Terrible terrible accidents. Accidents like 3-Mile Island or the Jimmy Carter election. They are accidents that should have been prevented through careful evaluation of all people claiming to be film makers. Please, if you ever hear of a movie like this ever being made again, take a bat and start beating in the head of the director. Then take a lighter and some gasoline, and burn down the studio. Then go get a paper shredder and shred the film. Then take the remaining shreds and toss them into the fire at the movie studio. Nothing this bad should ever exist again. Good Day.

APE is a truly strange hybrid: my best guess is that it was an Korean Monster Film that got bought by an American Filming Crew who spent a weekend getting background shots and shot all the giant ape footage in their backyard.

From the first great line in the film in which a mildly depressed actor utters the most deadpan expression of shock to stock footage of a cow that becomes an obviously fake battery-operated toy in faraway shots this film is a laugh riot. The cherry on top of this cake is that 'Joanna Von Savant' of the title is really Joanna Kerns from TV's Growing Pains. Apparently the 1980s weren't a good time for her, between being fondled by a fake ape in a ripoff of a Dino Laurentis film or a TV mom to a bunch of stupid kids that go to a school that calls their sports team "Hooters."

In short, don't watch APE. Experience it and hope to God someone's future film career depended on this.

I must confess to liking giant monster movies, but this film is really just plain awful! Bad special effects, even worse acting, silly premise. By the way that big snake would be considered a monster! Anyway painful as it was I made it through to the end. I chuckled a few times while watching this mess, just not believing what I'm seeing or hearing.

1 out of 10, for bad movies beware 5 out of 10. Suffer with me.

This video is probably the worst film ever made. I have a feeling that the director and script writer wanted to make the worst film of all time.If that is the case they did it. Now a 36 foot ape that is in Korea. It kills jaws,flicks off a helichopter,does the disco,and gets killed by annoying soldiers that stick thier gun barrel right next to the lens of the camera all with out making a noise mind you. I think the ape doesn't have a voice box or tongue.It's seriously the worst film ever. I have this film at my house and i paid $10 for it about 13 years agon when i was 5 cuase i liked king kong and stuff right so i thought hey looks good. when I got home and put it in i couldn't watch more then 5 minutes of it. A 5 year old i tell you couldn't satnd it Barney is better this peice of poo.

This was intended to be a serious movie which came out at the same time as the big budget remake of KING KONG. I remember as a kid, reading the poster in line at the theater which stated "not to be confused with King Kong", which is hilarious in itself. I ended up walking out (after the dumb guy in the ape suit wrestles the plastic shark in the pool scene) near the beginning and got a refund.

If they spent more than $50.00 to make this movie, they were fools.

You will be too if you watch this piece of crap.

A*P*E was made in an attempt to cash in on the success of King Kong (1976), except that King Kong was not a huge success at that time.

The effects will not impress you, you'll be too busy laughing at them instead. But it's great fun to mock them.

The movie is never boring and moves from one major set piece to another. Sure, it was ineptly made, but I have a bit of a soft spot for little disasters like this, and such an affinity for King Kong that I appreciate the "tribute" made here.

You've never seen such a funny and cheesy monster movie at all! This is a must for all of you, who wants to see cheesy and funny movies!

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I've always seen the 1976 Dino De Laurentiis produced King Kong as a big budget rip-off of the original instead of a remake. Therefore, that makes South Korea's The Great Counterattack of King Kong an inferior copy of a poor copy. Released in the United States as A*P*E*, Attack of the Giant Horny Gorilla and Hideous Mutant, this is one schlocky piece of business.

An American/South Korean co-production, this film was intended for a 3D release, as is quite evident when you see the flaming arrows shot at the camera that the big ape cannily dodges against a blue screen. It was released just before the much buzzed about and aforementioned Kong, complete with a poster that trumpeted that this Kong would fight a great white shark, going blockbuster to blockbuster against Jaws. This battle would be foreshadowed (and was probably ripped off from) a 1976 Famous Monsters of Filmland cover.

They even teased this movie as being called The New King Kong, which is — to be incredibly colloquial — a true balls move. It's also legally inadvisable, as RKO sued them into the ground, forcing a name change to Super Ape and finally A*P*E* Attacking Primate MonstEr. Why the acronym? As they were shooting in Korea and M*A*S*H* took place there (and was such a big deal at the time), it just seemed like a funny pun. Yes, a funny pun whose punchline is lost in the mist of time, but a pun nonetheless.

In fact, the lawsuit also forced the producers of this film to state that this movie "was not to be confused with King Kong." That's right, please don't confuse this movie about a giant monkey kidnapping an actress and fighting planes with any other film.

Starring Joanna Kerns, who you may know as Maggie Seaver — mom to the Growing Pains TV family — as Marilyn Baker, A*P*E* wastes no time getting started. An overdubbed ship crew discusses Kong's attack in Harlem, making it seem that this film is a sequel to either the original or the upcoming remake (legally we must inform you again that this film is not to be confused with King Kong), which makes sense in the former and none at all in the latter. But what do you expect for a film that took two weeks to shoot and had a budget of $23,000?

Read more at http://www.thatsnotcurrent.com/monkey-madness-look-back- ape/

This film begins with an obvious toy boat being destroyed by a guy in a cheap gorilla suit--the sort you'd rent for just a few dollars at a costume shop. Then, he proceeds to destroy a bunch of buildings that look even cheaper and sillier than those found in the Japanese giant monster films from Toho Studios! Most of the time, he moves about in super-slow motion and does a whole lot of nothing. And, as he does not much at all, you hear circus-like music. This time, however, the movie is a bit different, as the extras are all Korean AND their command of English is amazingly bad--so bad that it's rather funny to hear some of them stumble over even the simplest words.

Sadly, however, as the movie progresses, you learn that the cheap sets and guy in the gorilla suit and Koreans who can't speak English are the BEST aspects of the film!! That's because the acting is abysmal, the editing was done by a chimp, many scenes featuring screaming Korean peasants went on too long, the music highly inappropriate as well as annoying and the dialog is among the worst I've ever heard. Believe me, Ed Wood couldn't have made a gorilla film any worse than this (including his own BRIDE AND THE MONSTER).

There are unnecessary subplots involving a rather bland-looking actress and her boyfriend as well as a Colonel who is a total idiot (and needs a good haircut to even remotely look military) and curses CONSTANTLY--possibly more than any character in the 1970s. Aside from these stupid subplots, the rest of the film is essentially KING KONG but set in a Korea that is chock-full of crappy sets.

Overall, there really is nothing to recommend this film--unless you really need to see a guy in a gorilla suit flipping off the army (I kid you not--this REALLY happened in the movie). It's so bad, that it's a film almost exclusively for bad movie fans. It's also a great film for Jeff Bridges, Jessica Lange or Dino De Laurentiis to watch so that they can see that by comparison, the poor 1976 KING KONG film is like a Merchant-Ivory production! However, I do NOT recommend that Kim Jong-Il see the film--he might be tempted to nuke South Korea, since they were responsible for this atrocity of a movie!