A*P*E (1976)

You know, I don't ask a lot out of the movies I watch; only that they entertain.

That isn't so much, is it...after all, for b-movies especially, their main objective is to be exploitative (naturally) but they can also eke some entertainment value out of their cheap little celluloid hearts while they're at it.

Now, let's talk about giant monster movies. Nothing new here, as far back as when King Kong first stop-motioned his way across the screen in the thrilling yesteryears of black-and-white filming. Before you knew it, all kinds of giant beasties were tearing it up at your local theater and/or multiplex. And they were certainly entertaining, smashing down hundreds of scale-model cities with stomps, smashes and fire, sometimes all three at once.

You had giant dinosaurs, giant grasshoppers, giant ants, giant bees, giant rats, giant snakes, giant octopuses (octopi?), giant birds, giant gila monsters, giant turtles, giant moths, giant dogs and giant rabbits. Giant freaks of nature all over the place, all with the intent of messin' you up.

Of course, giant gorillas were always around as a reminder of where the giant monsters really owed their existence. Not only was their the king of them all (Kong), but there was Mighty Joe Young (who wasn't really all that much of a threat unless stupid humans riled him up), The Great Grape Ape (who was usually docile unless you fed him grapes) and our headliner for today, who was simply named A*P*E.

Why? Well, because that is also the name of our movie today: A*P*E. So there you keep your verisimilitude and filmic integrity. I guess you could be nit-picky and say that this is only ONE of the titles for our movie, since it was also called Hideous Mutant, Super Kong, The King Ape, The New King Kong and, the most demonstratively b-movie-ish of all, Attack of the Giant Horny Gorilla.

The other titles I can understand (for the most part), even Giant Horny Gorilla. After all, it's not like he's gonna find a lot of other ape babes his size to take back to his tree and show his etchings to. But A*P*E? Is this an anagram for something; like Mobile Army Surgical Hospital, or Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence, or For Unlawful Carnal....

Uh...you get the idea.

Actually, it is an anagram, if the Asian titling for this beauty is to be believed. A*P*E actually stands for Attacking Primate Monster...um, that is, if you leave off the Monster and just carry over the "E" at the end of Primate. See? I guess that makes sense, too. In a stupid way. Like in spy movies where they have to make an anagram for the evil force out to destroy the world from some word like C.R.U.S.H. or D.E.S.T.R.O.Y. or something like that. Maybe it's less stupid in Asia.

Anyway, there's a lot more that's stupid in this movie than its title (or its anagram or whatever you want to call it). Just pay attention first to what we will loosely call The Plot:

A newly discovered 36-foot gorilla escapes from a freighter off the coast of Korea. At the same time an American actress (Joanna Kerns) is filming a movie in the country. Chaos ensues as the ape...uh, I mean the A*P*E...kidnaps her and rampages through Seoul.

You want to know the first very stupid thing about this movie? It is so cheap and pieced together that not only do we not even see this freighter arrive at whatever island A*P*E called home (A*P*E*I*S*L*A*N*D, maybe?) before we catch up with it, but the beginning credits guy is so lazy he can't even be bothered with simple concepts like centering or spacing. It's a visual thing.

Anyway, the look of the movie is one thing. But the ape...sorry, the A*P*E...himself is an altogether different continent of stupid. Whether standing up in the middle of the ocean (remember, he's 36-feet tall) or fighting a giant shark that is A) big enough for him to fight so that this must be the Mega-Shark who fought that Giant Octopus not long ago and B) very obviously dead. Dead enough that when our A*P*E finishes flipping it around in the water like Bela Lugosi wrestling an inanimate octopus in Bride of the Monster and rips it in two by the jaw, it looks less like a life and death struggle and more like the sushi platter is ready.

And what about the sound of our hairy boy? Remember the mighty roar of the original King Kong? How about ferocious throaty growl of the '76 remake? Our A*P*E here...purrs. Like a kitten, yes. And that's the only sound he makes. All through the ungodly long 87 minutes of this thing, this shaggy pieced-together patchwork rug of a monkey either purrs like a cat or stays quiet. I would have welcomed a simple "oop-oop-oop" for a change of pace, but no....

Something else: when A*P*E goes on his mewing rampage across the width and breadth of South Korea and destroys buildings, houses, apartments and other constructs, every single destroyed item sounds the same as A*P*E smashes it - like a crumpled wad of paper. I am stone dead serious: A*P*E punches through a building - crumpled wad of paper. A*P*E stomps a row of suburban houses down flat - crumpled wad of paper. A*P*E rips the roof off of a house - crumpled wad of paper. It seems the sound effects budget got skimped on, when all the sounds they could afford were of a cat and of someone wadding up pages of the script.

Speaking of writing: director Paul Leder (father of better-respected daughter/director Mimi Leder), co-wrote and directed a vehicle that could only have been impressive if it were written on the back of the original screenplay for Mighty Joe Young. I mean, this is the guy who directed I Dismember Mama, fercryinoutloud!! But Leder wrote this with son Reuben Leder with the idea that this was apparently something...well, let me see....

It couldn't possibly be thought of as new; this is a storyline that was ancient even before 1933. It certainly wasn't exciting; for an action sequence, this movie settles for a bunch of smiling South Koreans running down stairs and towards the camera. It couldn't be a showcase for special effects; whereas the '76 Kong featured a suit by effects wiz Rick Baker, A*P*E featured an ape suit found in the trash can behind Goodwill and two giant tree trunks with feet standing in for A*P*E legs.

I don't know what you call this, but it ain't entertainment.

The acting is uniformly awful; from the blank expressions of the American extras, the thickly Korean-accented Nak-hun Lee as a military Captain, Alex Nicol as a perpetually angry American Army colonel, Rod Arrants as a smug guy who acts smugly and wanders around whenever the script calls for him to, and then down to the aforementioned Joanna Kerns (credited as Joanna DeVarona) as an actress who apparently is a big deal in South Korea but is filming a cheap little exploitation film where she is sexually assaulted - twice. The best acting in this whole thing is from a cow in a field...and it's only onscreen for two seconds!

Mix into this the A*P*E throwing rusty tin cans that explode at people, a giant snake thrown at the audience for no reason, kids breaking into a playground to play, a creepy puppet show that goes on forever, Nicol doing what amounts to a Bob Newhart phone routine for his role, a hang-glider on a string, the paper-crumpling destruction of a whole city block that looks constructed out of Styrofoam, an epic attack scene by helicopter that ends with A*P*E flipping off a crashed chopper (He. Gives. A. Chopper. The. Finger.) and some travelogue scenes that have to settle for character development and there you have a cheap cash-in/ripoff of a movie that itself ended up as the worst of 1976. Good planning; and an international production, too. Yay, global relations.

The only saving grace? That never really saved it? 3D. Really really bad 3D. Yep: A*P*E is a 3D film and as such you get scenes of a piece of wood crashing into an Army jeep, spears chucked at the viewer, more Styrofoam doubling for rocks, gun barrels aimed by South Korean guys, logs charged towards you...I just thank God and the Apostles they didn't stick with the Giant Horny Gorilla title; who knows WHAT we would have ended up with??

You want bad? This is bad. You want incompetent? Here it is. You want poor film-making and bad directing? Got it. You want the worst acting this side of an Ed Wood film? You're covered. You want THE worst special effects since Santa Claus Conquers the Martians? At least SCCTM didn't have wooden A*P*E legs.

I read one review on the Internet Movie Database that said something to the effect that this movie hates the viewer. Actually, I don't think that's true. A movie this stultifying horrible doesn't have the power to hate - only to mortify with its stupidity. This is a film done by people who only wanted to get something on the screen, and didn't care what it was. This is a movie that is too thick-witted, too slow and too stupid to anger or insult as much as it represents something to pity: namely, the intelligence level of Paul Leder.

If I were the U.S. Army, I would have sued for defamation of character. And if I were Jane Goodall, I'd be beating up a few film-makers....