A*P*E (1976)

[Pkmatrix]

I didn't see a thread for this one, so I figured I may as well create one...

This is one of those movies I'd heard about as a kid but didn't get around to buying until very recently. I finally watched it a couple of days ago.

Good God!

I knew this movie was bad. I mean, it's fairly infamous as one of the worst King Kong ripoffs of the '70s and one of the worst giant monster movies of all time. But...but...WOW. I wasn't prepared...I WASN'T PREPARED! Where do I even begin?

The acting is awful. I knew this from first moment someone spoke: it is the most disinterested and bland acting I've ever seen, worse even than the average Syfy schlock IMO. I feel like I'm watching (bad) student actors in a (bad) student film! The hero is bland, the heroine annoying, and good Lord who hired the guy playing the American Colonel?

The writing is...baffling. Is this a comedy? At times, I think it is, but I can't be sure. One minute we have what seems like a dull but otherwise by-the-book monster movie, the next we have zany crap like the Ape doing battle with the crew on a Martial Arts film, the Ape flipping off the US military, and the running gag that is Colonel Davids. Either way, the writing is just bad bad BAD all around.

The FX...

The monster FX have to be seen to be believed. I've never seen worse. The suit looks like a modified commercial Gorilla costume. It looks awful in every shot it's in. Whoever is playing the Ape (or "King Kong", they're unclear what the monster is named) thinks all he needs do is stand around and wave his arms, it looks ridiculous. Whoever is shooting the scenes has no sense of scale whatsoever, and about half the shots have no illusion of size at all - it just looks like a guy in a commercial Gorilla costume running around a football field or climbing up rocks behind the studio. The movie OPENS with the Ape wrestling a "giant" shark...which is so obviously a man in a bad costume playing with a dead shark it's just painful to watch. I might've been more forgiving, but it's a LONG sequence too...one of many long awfully executed FX sequences. About the only good thing I can say is that the miniature buildings are nice at times, but definitely on the cheap end.

So...yeah.

I won't recommend it, but this one is so bad you may have to track it down just to believe it. I couldn't. I still can't.

[Jinzo Ningen]

What say you!?! Bad-mouthing the single greatest giant monster movie ever made?!? Well... OK... so maybe it isn't. I watch it every couple of years or so when I need a good laugh. It certainly is a mess. I'm sure Joanna Kerns didn't list this film on her resume' when she tried out for Gorwing Pains. LOL

On another self-destructive note: I am still trying (although not very hard) to track down a watchable copy of Queen Kong, but so far no soap. Anyone have a good source, let me know.

[Silver Kamen]

This movie walks the line between So Bad It's Good, and that's not a good thing.

[rogerhartfell]

Anybody either interested or confounded by A*P*E should check out this long but wonderfully informative podcast which discusses many aspects of the film in detail... it runs longer than the film itself, but it's more than worth a listen. With a little editing it would probably make a great audio commentary.

http://podcastonfire.com/2012/11/podcas ... ode-7-ape/

There are some nice behind-the-scenes details on the genesis of the film as a King Kong cash-in and its subsequent inability to use the Kong name in the title, various pieces of info on the cast and crew (and why they were there), and the details of the 3D process and the filming of the various special effects scenes.

Two of my favourite factoids are how the original cut of the film only ran for 47 minutes (and had to be padded out with the addition of the Colonel Davis character), and how the special effects budget for the miniature buildings in A*P*E's big destruction scene was only $1200.

Also, I had absolutely no idea (until it was pointed out here) that the title was supposed to be a riff on M*A*S*H...

[Tom R VanSlambrouck]

I haven't seen A*P*E in ages the only thing I remember from it is the shark scene and the flipping off scene.