a_chinn
Corny but fun low budget horror film about small town mad scientist Boris Karloff trying to cure a girl of polio, while at the same time a circus ape has escaped and is terrorizing the locals. When the ape breaks into Karloff's laboratory and destroys the spinal fluids he needs to cure the girl, he concocts a scheme to skin the ape and then wear it's flesh as a disguise to kill the townsfolk in order to harvest their spinal fluid and let the ape take the blame. The film was written by Curt Siodmak, who wrote "The Wolf Man," but who also wrote a lot of nonsense along the lines of "Bride of the Gorilla" and "Tarzan's Magic Fountain," but I did find the overall story of Karloff disgusting himself as an ape to steal spinal fluid a campy good time. Fun, but nothing brilliant.
JoeKarlosi
During the brief 1937-1938 lull in horror film product, Boris Karloff worked for the cheap Monogram Studios, making a series of rather lackluster Mr. Wong detective pictures. When scary movies became in vogue again after the smash hit of SON OF FRANKENSTEIN in 1939, Monogram decided to make Karloff's last contracted movie a horror one.In THE APE, Boris falls into his comfortable niche of portraying a well-meaning and kindly old doctor. As Dr. Adrian, he is devoting all his time and effort into curing a beautiful wheelchair bound girl of her inability to walk. He has had some success with spinal fluid injections taken from recently deceased people, but finds he requires more and more of the serum to perfect a more permanent cure to end the girl's paralysis. At the same time, a savage gorilla has escaped from a local circus and is wreaking havoc right near the dedicated scientist's laboratory.Without revealing more details, the plot that is hatched from here on is potentially absurd and unbelievable. Yet, owing largely to Karloff's professional attitude and straight-forward performance, he helps the story rise above its silly premise. Boris is just perfect in his part, neither overacting nor just phoning it in. And this is what makes all the difference.**1/2 out of ****
imad_jafar
This dull time-waster is a delirious drag from start to finish. The twisted plot involves Dr. Bernard Adrian (Boris Karloff), who is conducting crazy experiments involving spinal fluid. Meanwhile, a vicious circus ape breaks free and starts murdering townsfolk. The animal soon enters Adrian's lab, but the elderly scientist kills the monkey and then comes up with the devilish plan of wearing it's skin and killing more people so that he can get the desired amount of spinal fluid for his experiments. While the cheesy ape effects have some cheap charm, this typical example of forties B-grade horror is nothing but a badly-constructed bore and should therefore only be viewed by the most die-hard Karloff fans.
Mark Honhorst
This is a bad movie made worse by horrendous DVD "restoration". Like many old public domain films, the quality is so bad it looks and sounds like someone tore little bits and pieces of the film away. The best way to describe the quality of this film is "moth eaten". I don't know why, it just sounds right to me. It's about a scientist(Karloff) who tries to cure polio by running around the countryside in an ape pelt in search of victims that he can drain of spinal fluid. It has a ridiculous plot that takes itself too seriously. Don't go into this film expecting it to be a "pleasant surprise" or "better than most cheap old horror movies", because it's just like all the rest. At least it was in my opinion.
AD
