Night of the Bloody Apes (1969)

This cheap Mexican horror film is a remake of Cardona's Doctor of Doom (1962), spiced with nudity, medical footage, women wrestling, and cheap gore shots. Female masked wrestler Lucy (who ... See full summary »

Director:

René Cardona

Writers:

René Cardona Jr. (story and adaptation), René Cardona (story and adaptation)

Stars:

José Elías Moreno, Carlos López Moctezuma, Armando Silvestre

Cast

Credited cast:
José Elías Moreno	...	Dr. Krallman
Carlos López Moctezuma	...	Goyo
Armando Silvestre	...	Lt. Arturo Martinez
Norma Lazareno	...	Lucy Osorio
Agustín Martínez Solares	...	Julio Krallman (as Agustin Mtz. Solares)
Javier Rizo
Gerardo Zepeda	...	Monstruo (as Gerardo Cepeda)
Noelia Noel	...	Víctima
Gina Morett	...	Mujer en regadera
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Anna Levine
Roger Park

Storyline

This cheap Mexican horror film is a remake of Cardona's Doctor of Doom (1962), spiced with nudity, medical footage, women wrestling, and cheap gore shots. Female masked wrestler Lucy (who looks like the devil) beats the stuffing out of an opponent - a wrestling lady with a red costume like Catwoman. Lucy finally hurls her opponent from the squared circle and knocks her out cold. Although Lucy's cop boyfriend tries to convince her that it's all part of the show, Lucy can no longer handle the stress of wrestling. Meanwhile, a mad scientist (Dr. Krellman) attempts to cure his son's leukemia by doing the first 'ape-to-human' heart transplant. He decides to put a gorilla's heart into the lad and orders his flunky to "prepare the gorilla!". There is actual footage of a graphic open heart surgery inserted in the ape operation scenes. This of course causes the boy to turn into a big stinky man-ape. He becomes deformed and mutated, as he sprouts excessive facial hair and takes on the ...

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Plot Keywords:

female wrestler | surgery | transformation | blood splatter | monster | 

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Taglines:

Nobody sleeps the... Night of the Bloody Apes

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Genres:

Horror

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Certificate:

R

Details

Country:

Mexico

Language:

Spanish

Release Date:

1972 (USA)

Also Known As:

Night of the Bloody Apes

Filming Locations:

Estudios Churubusco Azteca, Mexico City, Distrito Federal, Mexico

Company Credits

Production Co:

Cinematográfica Calderón S.A.

Technical Specs

Runtime:

83 min (dubbed)

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Features footage of an actual human heart transplant operation in two separate scenes.

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Goofs

When the girl is attacked in the park, the fake "grass" is accidently pushed aside, revealing the hard studio floor beneath.

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Quotes

Dr. Arturo Martinez: It's more probable that of late more and more you're watching in your television many of those pictures of terror.

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Alternate Versions

The film has an interesting history in the UK. It was released in cinemas with around a minute of cuts in October 1974 to heavily edit the rape & murder of the woman in the bedroom and to remove a closeup shot of a stabbing. It was subsequently released on video in the early -Eighties possibly uncut, however this release was banned and withdrawn in the mid-Eighties. In the early Nineties it was passed by the UK censors with cuts but whoever got hold of this tape (released by Vipco video) were in for a surprise at it was accidentally re-released intact, before it was withdrawn yet again. In 1999 it was released by Satanica video, in a version that was obviously taken from Vipco's planned cut version (Vipco's logo remains). This time the distributor removed every single violent scene before submitting it to the censors. Strangely the scene where the doctor assistant is killed contains several shots of a completely different character being killed, whose demise doesn't happen until a few scenes later in the film.

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Connections

Featured in Video Nasties: Moral Panic, Censorship & Videotape (2010)

User Reviews

Check it out!!!

I must disagree with other critics here. This is a marvelous Mexican exploitation movie. One problem with the translated title, however, is that there is only one ape in the movie, not two, and he dies early on after having his heart transplanted to a human. Thereafter, a man-ape assumes the role of movie-monster, so he's not fully a gorilla. Apes?? Anyway, much of the movie was made to titilate Mexican male viewers in the era of the movie's release, 1972. The ape-man has a penchant for chasing voluptuous Mexican ladies and tearing their blouse and bra off. For some reason he also likes to rip the heads off of human males. Surely this is the consequence of his animal heart! The movie also features the obligatory masked wrestling women, the heroine in this instance having almost no connection with the ape-man or his evil scientist creator, but the dialogue makes for extremely bad/funny sequences. There is much red paint splattered about and some obviously phony gore scenes. A great and good laugh for the twisted soul such as myself.