Night Of The Bloody Apes — Night Of The Bloody Apes( Blu ray & DVD)
Night Of The Bloody Apes is a late 1960’s blend of mad doctor horror and sleazed ‘n’ gore bound stalking monster fun. The film is most known as being part of the UK video nasty list, and on the whole, it’s a passable enough exploitation ride- with campy( dubbed) dialogue, bloody ripping gore, a fairly bit of female flesh, and some masked female wrestling thrown into the mix. Here on VCI Entertainment is a dual Blu Ray and DVD release of the film- taking in a bonus film Doctor Of Doom( which Night was meant to be a remake of), a commentary track for the main film, a few video essays, and an inlay booklet.
Night of the Bloody Apes ( aka La horripilante bestia humana ) was a Mexican film made in the year 1969. Then down the line, it landed up getting an American English dub, which pushed the camp at points silly levels up, though as a counterbalance we get some brutal gore and very leering shots of female flesh. The film was directed by Havan born René Cardona- who had an impressive one hundred and forty-three feature-length credits to his name. These went from the comedy-fantasy drama Don Juan Tenorio( 1937), musical comedy Hotel de Verano(1944), ancient stone idol horror The Living Idol (1957), Father Christmas battles satan fantasy Sanat Claus( 1959), and a fair few films in the masked wrestler vs evil Santo series, plane crash in the snow disaster film Survive(1976), and Mexican sex comedy Las computadoras(1982). So he certainly was a versatile director- and while the film to hand is fairly standard exploitation fare, it’s largely well enough shot/ made- though tonally it’s all over the place.
After the clearly stuck on credits for the US dub of the film, we meet Lucy Osorio(Norma Lazareno)- who by day is the girlfriend of Lt. Arthur Martínez(Armando Silvestre), and by night is a dressed in a scarlet masked female wrestler. She is just masking up and going into the ring- during the flight, she pushes her competitor out of the ring, where she damages her skull- she’s taken into the hospital, and here we meet another key character Dr Krallman(José Elías Moreno)- a grey, tubby, and sweating doctor- who has a son with an incurable disease.
As we get into the film the well-meaning, though clearly mad doctor Krallman decides to take an ape from the local zoo. When he gets back to his basement lab, with the help of a worried look and moustache henchman, he transplants the ape heart into his son. This seemingly works, though one day his sons face switches to that of an ape, and he breaks out. Going on several gored and sleazed attacks, so it’s up to Lt. Arthur Martínez to figure whose committing the attacks/ murders, and try to track down the man-ape crossbreed.
The film is a blend of female masked wrestling action, brutal and bloody gore- taking in topless beatings, throat rippings, eyeball pulling, and a head ripped off. And a fair bit of female flesh- be it mixed with attacks, or on its own. The acting is passable but largely made laughable and hammy due to the truly bad dubbing. Night Of The Bloody Apes was one of the few video nasty films I hadn't seen, and while it’s far from a masterpiece- it’s an entertaining curio blending wrestling and cop thriller with mad doctor and blood creature action.
Moving onto this new dual-disc DVD/ blu ray release, and both discs are region free. And on the extras front, we get a commentary track from film writer/filmmaker Travis Crawford on the main picture. This is a fact, observation, and other films to check packed track- though at times he does jump around topics a bit too much. He goes from discussing the three different cuts of the film- the US one with gore/ heart surgery inserts, the tamer no flesh/ gore Mexican cut, and the more fleshy bound Mexican export version. As we move on he talks about the Mexican film industry in general, gives brief actors bios, discusses certain scenes, talks about key films made by René Cardona and his son René Cardona Jr. He chats about both Mexican wrestling and horror films- giving good if brief primers of both, and much more. So he certainly covers a lot of ground, most of it interesting- though he does dart around a bit too much. We get a thirty-four-minute video Essay for Night of the Bloody Apes by film academic Dr David Wilt, he discusses the different cuts in detail, talks about the films release history showing us a VHS film, and general talk about the film and the filmmaker's other work- it’s ok, though he does later switch into film lecture mode slightly. And we Dr David Wilt returning once again to talk about Doctor Of Doom- this runs twenty-nine minutes and sees him discussing this film's production, its actors and themes. He also discusses the Mexican female wrestling series of films this started off, as well as early films that had the mad doc- make ape plot, which was seemingly very popular in Mexico. This video essay is better than the first one, as he remains more focused and largely stays away from a scholarly chat.
The other extra/ bonus here is 1963’s Doctor Of Doom( Las luchadoras contra el médico asesino, Sex Monster, Rock 'N Roll Wrestling Women vs. the Aztec Ape). It was once again directed René Cardona, and I must say I was pleasantly surprised- as it’s quite different from Night Of The Blood Ape- sure we have the same elements a mad doc, an ape-man cross/ breed, and female wrestlers- but it's certainly not the same film/ or in the same genres. I’d say what we have here is a campy rather 50’s feeling film, that blends together elements of mad doctor action, masked villain crime film/ noir, and female-led action/ wrestling fare.
The film is set in an unnamed city where someone is killing women and removing their brains, before dumping them. One of the victims is a devil may care young woman who works in the lab of seemingly kindly, older and bespeckled doc Prof Ruiz(Roberto Cañedo). The sister of the unfortunately dead lab assistant is female wrestler Gloria Venus( Lorena Velázquez), and she teams up with two local detectives, and her female wrestling friend to find out what happened to her sister and who did it. Fairly soon we find out it's a mad white fabric masked doctor who is swiping women off the street with the help of his gangster goons and an armoured half-ape/ man.
The film unfolds in a nice pacy, and entertaining manner- with touches of sly humour along the way, lots of wrestler vs gangster goons action, maniacal mad doctor/ masked villain fun, and light touches of noir and lumbering monster attacks. As I mentioned early I was most surprised by Doctor Of Doom, thinking it was just going to be a tamer version of Night Of The Bloody Ape, but it’s much more than that, and an enjoyable film in its own rights.
The two-disc set comes presented in a double Blu ray case- this is presented in a card slip that features Night’s garish grindhouse poster. Also in the set, we get an eight-page glossy inlay booklet- this features linear notes by Dr David Wilt, as well as a good selection of stills and poster art.
In finishing this is rather nicely presented two-disc set- and it’s great to have these two important & connected Mexican exploitation films in one place. Both films get a good/ new 4k scans, with a nice selection of extras on offer too- making this something you’ll be wanting to pick up, if you enjoy 1960’s exploitation fare.