{"id":844,"date":"2024-08-23T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-08-23T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/leoloves.co.uk\/?p=844"},"modified":"2024-07-20T15:36:44","modified_gmt":"2024-07-20T15:36:44","slug":"pithecophobia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/leoloves.co.uk\/index.php\/2024\/08\/23\/pithecophobia\/","title":{"rendered":"Pithecophobia"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WARNING:<\/mark> <\/strong>This Article May Contain Spoilers<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m sure when you say \u201cKiller Ape\u201d to people, the first thing that would spring to mind would be King Kong (especially with the continuous new films that have been coming out). Well, let\u2019s just say that he\u2019s not the only killer ape out there \u2013 there\u2019s even Inga who is on the side of good that kills in Dario Argento\u2019s Phenomena\u2026<\/em>but here are a few that aren\u2019t so good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Ape<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

                Starring one of the greats of horror in Boris Karloff, this film may blur the lines when it comes to officially being an ape horror, as it is a man dressed in an ape\u2019s skin. Yes, I said skin \u2013 not costume! Well, I guess the ape does kill 2 people before being killed by Dr Adrian so it still slightly fits. The one thing I will say is that follows along the lines of several other horror films that include animals, it always seems to be about doing something for the greater good and in this case Dr Adrian is trying to help one of his patients walk again. Interestingly, yet not surprising, Nabu the gorilla is the only animal that isn\u2019t real when he escapes from the circus. What\u2019s clever however, is that we never actually see Dr Adrian getting in and out of the ape\u2019s skin so it would be easy to believe the ape is still alive until right at the end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Blood Monkey<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

                Can you complain about a film using false advertising the same way as you can regular business? Because the image for this film looks like the aforementioned blood monkey is a cute little spider monkey when in fact, based on the opening scene, it\u2019s a gorilla \u2013 which is not a monkey! I feel the same way about this as I do the opening scene of Arachnaphobia, <\/em>if the indigenous people won\u2019t go any further \u2013 probably not the best idea to do so yourself! Oddly enough, this film actually reminds me a little bit of Anaconda, <\/em>including the secretive professor as it seems the main characters have no idea about the killer gorilla. I actually feel that Professor Hamilton is the real antagonist in this film as he starts to use the students as bait to lure the gorilla.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Ape Man<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

                Much like The Ape, <\/em>this film stars another great of horror history in Bela Lugosi as Dr James Brewster \u2013 the titular Ape Man. Instead this time it is not a man dressed in an ape\u2019s skin, he has turned himself into an ape by becoming his own guinea pig for his experiments. Because of this, Dr Brewster is believed to have disappeared. Also in similarity to The Ape, <\/em>the deaths that take place throughout this easy-watch 1 hour film are for the same reason \u2013 the need for human spinal fluid, the only thing that will help Brewster become human again. Mentioning the fact that the lead character isn\u2019t just a man dressed in an ape\u2019s skin brings me to another difference between the two films \u2013 the murders are committed by the ape that Brewster has had sheltered in his laboratory, making this more of an ape horror than The Ape.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shakma<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

                I actually want to know how they did the surgery scene right at the beginning because it looked like they were actually operating on a baboon\u2019s brain. However, I don\u2019t know how many times I have to say it, can we stop messing with animals for the supposed good of science? Have these people not seen what can happen? Shakma, the titular ape of this film, doesn\u2019t ask for what\u2019s done to him and its craziness in the first place to mess with the most aggressive primate. I don\u2019t want to side with what Shakma does to those playing the game because not all of them were involved in the surgery, and I especially do not agree with the fact that he kills the other primates! He also seemed to be eating them when Bradley finds him which is just disturbing! The one thing I will say is that no matter how brutal the deaths are, we actually don\u2019t see the characters die. Much like Grizzly, <\/em>which I mentioned in my Arkoudaphobia <\/em>article, it seems they used a real baboon for this film. I\u2019ll be honest, with the mention of the trackers, I was expecting to see a similar scene to that in Alien.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bride of the Gorilla<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

                At the risk of repeating myself, but then again it shouldn\u2019t be a surprise as this film, along with The Ape <\/em>and The Ape Man<\/em>,were made around the same time, and here we have a film starring a 3rd<\/sup> great of horror history in Lon Chaney Jnr. However, unlike the previous two \u2013 this film has nothing to do with science. Is it weird that I actually feel sorry for Barney? Yes, he kills his boss, but he does it for love (I\u2019d thought from the write-up that he took Dina by force but he doesn\u2019t, she loves him too) so I feel the curse is a little unfair on him. What\u2019s great about this compared to the other two is the transition of Barney into a gorilla \u2013 it\u2019s so seamless. Especially when Barney sees his own hand changing when signing the marriage certificate. The only thing is, there is reference to the death of animals but we never actually see anything or anyone killed until right at the end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Swamp Ape<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

                With this only being 58 minutes, at first I thought it was made around the same time as The Ape,<\/em> Bride of the Gorilla <\/em>and The Ape Man <\/em>but it seems it is more of a modern short film. It may be called Swamp Ape <\/em>but this feels a lot more like a Bigfoot style of story. Unless the point they are trying to make is that the swamp ape is the reason for the Bigfoot myth. The funny thing is, we don\u2019t actually see much of the swamp ape throughout the entire film! Yes, it attacks the dog at the beginning of the film but nothing outside of that until there\u2019s about 20 minutes left. I\u2019ll say this much, for quite a cheap film, the deaths still look pretty good. I don\u2019t think there was much need for the swamp ape penis though \u2013 was about as disturbing as Bunny the Killer Thing.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WARNING: This Article May Contain Spoilers I\u2019m sure when you say \u201cKiller Ape\u201d to people, the first thing that would spring to mind would be King Kong (especially with the continuous new films that have been coming out). Well, let\u2019s just say that he\u2019s not the only killer ape out there \u2013 there\u2019s even Inga … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":870,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-extreme-fear-can-neither-fight-nor-fly","latest_post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/leoloves.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/leoloves.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/leoloves.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leoloves.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leoloves.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=844"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/leoloves.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":845,"href":"https:\/\/leoloves.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844\/revisions\/845"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leoloves.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/leoloves.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leoloves.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leoloves.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}