Night of the Bloody Apes 1969

Director:René Cardona

Be warned, folks. Film 2000, the people who bring you this mess, clearly state that this film has "extreme gore, sex and violence and this is the first totally uncut release". This is an outright LIE, as everything has been cut out of this film, save for a token splash of blood here and there. I didn't pay for this film and it still pissed me off.

Looks to me like there's about six or seven minutes really badly cut out of this film. I was in no mood to be messed around with, as the night before I'd sat through Cat in the Brain and had a hangover, but as the film played out and it became apparent that I wasn't going to see the famous 'ripping the wig off the bald guy bit' I began to get angry. There's nothing worse than watching a film whose main reason for existing has been removed.

It had all the elements for being enjoyable. A doctor who's son is gravely ill comes up with the idea of transplanting an ape heart and curing him. A female wrestler is going to quit because she accidentally put her friend into a coma. Nothing makes any sense and the whole film has that lovely crap feel about it. If only the gore was in there too.

The doctor and his Igor like assistant go to the zoo and kidnap and guy in a gorrilla suit. After some open heart surgery we don't get to see, the doctor's son immediatlly grows a terrible ape mask and become all muscly. After jumping through a window (this guy doesn't know how to use doors) he goes off and rapes a chick in an awfully edited sequence that gave me a nosebleed. Worse still, I couldn't figure out if this was the censoring or the film itself.

That's basically your plot. The doctor runs around, re-captures his son, son escapes again, kills more folk (but you don't see anything thanks to Film 2000), doctor does another heart surgery using the comatose female wrestler, son escapes again, blah blah blah to be honest once it dawned on me that Film 2000 had pulled a fast one I lost interest and fast forwarded the last fifteen minutes.

The kooky stuff was cool. There's three wrestling matches in the first twenty minutes of the film. There's a Batman like swirly transition between scenes. The science is off the wall (heart transplants cure cancer?) and the way the guy's son transforms into the ape is idiotic to say the least. At one point the doctor asks God for more time and his prayers are answered.

But where's my wig ripping? The DVD cover clearly states it should be in there, but it aint. A complete and utter rip off from a company clearly preying on people trying to track down these films. If you work for Film 2000 and are reading this, boot yourself up the arse.

Avoid.