Night of the Bloody Apes

There are some titles destined to grab hold of ones imagination. Night of the Bloody Apes (1972) is a pretty standout example. Of course, it’s a bit misleading. Those of you picturing a marauding group of gore-soaked orangutans may come away disappointed. In fact, there’s only one ape, and he’s more of a man-made monster, really. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Our plot begins with lovely Lucy, a female lucha libre wrestler. During a match she accidentally cracks her opponent’s skull open. Tough move. Being the sweet luchadora next door type, she’s real broken up about all this. The comatose wrestler is carted off to the hospital, where lurks Dr. Krallman, a madder-than-mad scientist.

Krallman’s son Julio is dying of leukemia. While this would make any parent desperate, most wouldn’t react by stealing a gorilla from the zoo. Yes, Krallman’s master plan is to give Julio the gorilla’s heart, thus curing him of cancer...well, it probably made perfect sense at the time. Unfortunately, it turns out that gorilla hearts are too powerful for the human system to handle, and Julio is transformed into a murderous man-beast! Not having much else to do, Julio splits and goes out on a killing spree.

Most of the movie is devoted to Julio escaping, being captured by dad and obsequious lackey Goyo, and escaping again. Lucy shows up to wrestle once in a while, but spends most of her time being irrelevant to the plot and taking showers. By the time Dr. Krallman has concocted a baffling, psuedoscientific plan to put Julio right again, things may already be...too late.

So what’s the gore score? Pretty darn good. Upping the quotient is the fact that actual footage of open heart surgery is used during the transplant scene. It’s hard to get more realistic than that! Julio’s killing sprees give us plenty of variety. Strangling, clawing, stabbing, scalping, decapitation...the kid does it all! Probably the best bit is when Julio is lurching down a street, only to turn casually and pop out a guy’s eyeball. Ouch.

That’s all well and good, but what about sex? Those of you who like their blood with a healthy side order of boobs will not be disappointed. Most of the T&A on display is all thanks to Julio. The cheeky man-beast has a habit of violently disrobing his female victims. “Screaming” and “Jiggling” are two words that apply to most of the female characters in this movie

There are a lot of little things to love about Apes. My own personal point of adoration is the fact that Julio is always clad in his pajama bottoms. Sort of takes away from that aura of menace, doesn’t it? It certainly makes him unique. I can’t think of any other monsters that go out to kill in their comfy sleepwear. 

The dubbing is another draw here. For one thing, the translation from Spanish is hopelessly awkward. If the idea of English syntax taking a brutal pounding appeals to you (you pervert), this is a movie you will not want to miss. The voice work is about what you’d expect. Hearing Dr. Krallman say “Prepare the gorilla” with all the gravitas of a trained Shakespearean is a genuine delight. So lets recap, shall we? Mad doctors. Cringing henchmen. Female Mexican wrestlers. An ape-man in his jammies. People, if I’m dreaming, please don’t wake me up.

The Incredible Melting Man

The Incredible Melting Man (1977) is one gooey flick. And I’m telling you right now, this is pretty much the central thesis of my review. So, if you have anywhere you really need to be, a dentist appointment or whatever, feel free to run along. Those of you with more time on your hands, stick with me. Things are about to get messy!

The plot here is pretty classic sci-fi/horror fare. Astronaut Steve West is tragically irradiated when his ship gets too close to some stock footage of a solar flare. He survives, but with some serious melting issues and an insatiable hunger for human flesh. Upon discovering his condition, Steve attacks and munches on a chubby nurse whose uniform fits her like the casing on a sausage. Freshly energized, Steve escapes to go on a rampage of oozin’ and eatin’. It’s up to Dr. Ted Nelson and General Perry to catch the melting menace before the local populace catches on. Unfortunately for them, Steve is doing some pretty efficient population control.

All this sounds like fun, so here’s a rough question. Is the movie any good? The best I can come up with is, well, sorta. The acting doesn’t help. It’s either overdone to the point of panicked hysteria, or simply doesn’t exist. For instance, General Perry is outacted by random household appliances. Though to be fair, the interior decor in the film is so strikingly horrible that this may not entirely be his fault. The pacing is another issue here. Scenes that should be suspenseful are dragged out until they become as turgid and slow as melting man ooze running uphill. 

The worst offender in the category is the scene in which Steve is stalking around the home of Dr. Nelson while his wife sits inside and knits. And knits. And knits. For what feels like an hour. The tension is unbearable. Will she drop a stitch? Stab herself with a needle? God, I can hardly stand to watch. 

So then, what is good? The effects. Don’t go expecting too much gore; the film is more vile than violent. There are some chewed on corpses to look at, though. And the head. Oh, the head. Early in his rampage, Steve attacks a dopey fisherman and decapitates him through sheer brute strength (Because that’s how radiation works in movies. It makes you strong, sticky, and starving.) The head gets dropped in the river, where it blissfully floats downstream until it goes over a waterfall and cracks open on some rocks. Sheer poetry.

But the best thing about the film is the melting, as the title would indeed indicate. As Steve decomposes further, bits begin to get left behind. In the end, his face is little more than a slime covered skull. There are some genuine “how did they do that?” moments, and that’s what really makes the film worth watching. Makeup artist Rick Baker certainly did a lot on a budget that can’t have been too impressive. So now, the big question: should you watch The Incredible Melting Man? I would say yes. If you’ve got the time for gallons of slime, that is. 

Emanuelle in America

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Five Minutes to Live

In the 60s, Elvis was churning out a whole mess of movies. Formulaic light musicals, mainly. Now, I’m not here to review one, so why would I bring it up? Because our flick of the moment happens to star another popular singer of the day: the one and only Johnny Cash. Yes, that’s right, while Elvis was wiggling his hips and kissin’ his cousins, Johnny was starring in a mean spirited, low budget crime picture called Five Minutes to Live (1961). 

Johnny Cash plays Johnny Cabot, a psychotic criminal who gets himself involved in a rather unusual bank heist. He’s tasked with taking the wife of a suburban bank’s vice president hostage in her own home. His partner Fred is in charge of squeezing the ransom money out of her husband. If he doesn’t pay up, Johnny’s only too happy to kill the unlucky housewife. 

A bit of a convoluted way to rob a bank, but you have to admit it’s original. Really though, you can take or leave the plot. It’s not important. You’re here to see Johnny Cash. And what you really want to know is, can he act? Yes, as it turns out. He steals the whole damn movie. Every move he makes is imbued with a smoldering menace that insures you won’t be able to take your eyes off him. 

And what fun he has! He berates the harried housefrau for her slovenly appearance, and forces her to change into a marabou accented negligee. At gun point, of course. And naturally he has to do a little redecorating, in the form of smashing all her most beloved knick knacks. As much fun as the makeover antics are, the real highlight comes when he croons the title song to her, lackadaisically strumming along on the guitar he conveniently brought. All in all, there are worse ways to be informed that you only have “five minutes to live.”

Unfortunately for all of us, Johnny’s reign of capricious terror can’t last forever. The plot gets thick as coagulated blood when little Bobby (a very young Ronnie Howard!) comes home from school for lunch. Naturally, though he’s a cold blooded killer, Johnny has a weakness for children. With this massive monkey wrench in the works, will the heist be pulled off? Hell, I’m not going to tell you. You’ll just have to watch it yourself, and believe me, you’ll be glad you did. If you’re still not convinced, keep in mind that the film was called “Door to Door Maniac” when it was rereleased a few years later. If that’s not a title for the ages, I don’t know what is.

And after all, it’s not like you’re going to see Elvis using Ron Howard as a human shield in a police shootout.