Night Of The Bloody Apes (1969)

Ever wonder what it would be like if somebody crossed a Herschell Gordon Lewis film with a Mexican wrestling Lucha Libre film? Well your answer is right here. Night Of The Bloody Apes is all of the above.

The director of this thing was responsible for a few Santo and friends Lucha Libre films so it is no wonder that masked wrestling women made their way into this pre 70's gore epic. Anybody who made it through Rock 'N' Roll Wrestling Women Vs. The Aztec Mummy without falling asleep and actually liked it needs to check this ultra campy flick out. The movie starts off with Lucy a masked female wrestler kicking the shit out of her opponent in the ring. When Lucy tosses the rival wrestler over the ropes and out of the ring her opponent goes into a coma with a fractured achy-breaky skull. This makes Lucy contmeplate quiting wrestling and find another profession but you can take the ring from the girl but you can not keep the girl outta the ring. When this chick gets stood up by her cop boyfriend she goes back to knock a few more screws loose. Of course all of the wrestling stuff is good fun but it is only a taste of things to come. After all this is a gore flick.

While all of this masked female wrestling shit is going on a surgeon is performing new experiments on his dying son. The doctor refuses to let his son go and comes up with the brilliant idea to perform a heart transplant with that of a giant gorilla. The theory is that since a gorilla is so strong its heart must also be strong and if such a giant heart is placed into the body of a normal sized human being that it would help the person regain a healthy immune system and fight off disease. Sound logical? Of course not but that is what Night Of The Bloody Apes has to offer in all of its genius. The surgeon heads down to the local zoo and shoots a gorila up with tranquilizers. He preforms the surgery and the results are a bit different then the doctor expects. His son turns into "A half man, half beast" and grows in size. What we really get is a muscle head running around with a crazy looking gorilla mask and raping young, hot, Mexi-girls. I personally think this thing should have been called Night Of The Ape Rape but I suppose the whole "Bloody" thing is also fitting since there is lots of bloodletting to come.

The surgery scenes were all cut in later for a little extra kick. The real surgery footage is bound to make some of the softer folk out there squirm but it is a nice added touch and a gore hounds delight.

As I mentioned the mad scientist creates one hell of a horny, rape-happy monkey. The Bloody Ape roams about at night and stalks bathing beauties. The girls in this movie pretty much bare it all with the exception of pubic hair and most of them are actually pretty nice to look at. That is at least until the ape-man gets his hands on them. Not only does the Bloody Ape tear away any clothing that his next female victim might be wearing but he also enjoys tearing at their flesh.

However the beast doesn't limit his victims to strictly women. If a poor unfortunate man happens to step in his way the ape-man will certainly eliminate him in a gory way. Eyeballs are popped out from their heads, teeth are ripped out, throats a clawed at and guts are pulled from stomachs. It all sounds pretty disgusting and in a way it is but Night Of The Bloody Apes has this sort of charm to it that is only really known to Herschell Gordon Lewis freaks. It is all done in good sleazy fun and it is pretty damn hard to take a movie like this very seriously. The imagery is brutal, gooey and some what depraved but for me there is almost a goofy innocence to these movies. Sure they are bound to insult up-tight assholes, sure they are pure trash but a ridiculous mad scientist monster-ramma flick crossed with female wrestlers and tons of red gore still comes off light hearted compared to some of the much more serious stuff that would follow in the next few years. Stuff like I Spit On Your Grave or even Last House On The Left all comes off much more realistically darker.

Night Of The Bloody Apes is a perfect Mexi-melt of 50's monster movies, 60's Sexploitation and the darker decade which will follow. It is also a perfect flick to round up a few beers and a few friends and prove to your chums how demented you actually are and I think our mad scientist said it best when he delivers the ridiculous line "It's more probable that of late more and more you're watching in your television many of those pictures of terror."
Fans of this movie would also probably like Doctor Butcher M.D. (Medical Deviate) an Italian exploitation film which blends multiple trash film genres into one big gory bowl of pasta.