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The Ape

Play trailer Poster for The Ape Released Sep 30, 1940 1h 2m Horror Play Trailer Watchlist
Watchlist Tomatometer Popcornmeter
43% Tomatometer 7 Reviews 13% Popcornmeter 500+ Ratings
Dr. Bernard Adrian (Boris Karloff) is researching a way to help a wheelchair-bound patient, Frances (Maris Wrixon), use her legs again. The only way he can achieve this is by procuring spinal fluid from a human. When an ape escapes from a circus, Dr. Adrian kills it in a confrontation and successfully uses its spinal fluid on Frances -- but he needs more. Using the ape's body as a suit, he kills townspeople in a crazed attempt to complete his plan.

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The Ape

Critics Reviews

View All (7) Critics Reviews
David Mermelstein Wall Street Journal Boris Karloff is the prime draw in The Ape, even if this 62-minute effort, co-written by horrormeister Curt Siodmak, is largely unworthy of its star. Oct 29, 2020 Full Review Kathy Fennessy Seattle Film Blog The underdeveloped scenario makes it feel as if the ink wasn't quite dry on Richard Carroll's pages before William Nigh began to shoot. Rated: 2.5/4 Apr 15, 2022 Full Review Jeffrey M. Anderson Combustible Celluloid This thoroughly silly movie is worth seeing mainly for a delightfully touching, hammy performance by Boris Karloff in the lead role. Rated: 3/4 Oct 25, 2020 Full Review Matt Brunson Film Frenzy A lesser effort in Karloff's doctor cycle. Rated: 2/4 Oct 24, 2020 Full Review Dennis Schwartz Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews Silly as all the other Boris Karloff mad scientist pics, but just as entertaining. Rated: B- Nov 3, 2009 Full Review Emanuel Levy EmanuelLevy.Com Rated: 2/5 Jul 21, 2005 Full Review Read all reviews

Audience Reviews

View All (44) audience reviews
Blu B As much as we love the Golden Era with nostalgia, never forget bad movies aren't a modern phenomenon. This is terrible. The acting is so wooden, forgettable, and besides the girl in the chair who is probably the best thing in this, no one stands out. It feels like Karloff is just phoning it in half the time. The music is so forgettable and not even used enough to offset the dry feeling in this. Everything else is subpar. This is like a cross between Frankenstein with a Gorilla and fails miserably. The whole gorilla plot with trying to help the paralyzed girl walk (which is the better of the two) feels like two completely seperate stories. We're also just thrown into things with no real character setup until later which feels out of place. The cinematography is so crude, basic, and so dark half the time you canbarely see it. I can't tell if it's because of the film being poor or the way it was shot but I think it was the latter. This feels well over 90 minutes because of how dry, boring, unfocused, and poorly made this is. The plot twist makes no freakin sense also and comes out of left field with no explanation. Major strike for that. It barely feels like a horror film and also ebcause we already know what's going on, and don't really care for any characters there is no suspense at all as the stock investigators discover what we already know and just recite plot lots of times. Skip This. You know for being called The Ape, it's barely on screen ever and is just talked about half the time. Rated 2 out of 5 stars 10/16/24 Full Review Jared E I generally love pre 1950 movies so I am already partial to the ape on that account. But I liked the storyline it was unusual that a doctor would care so much about healing his patients that he dons an ape suit to kill lol. Obviously a modern version of this storyline would be corny but I find this movie to be a fun watch. Rated 4 out of 5 stars 10/15/24 Full Review Audience Member What should be a boring sleeper is raised slightly be the interactions between Karloff & Wrixon. I suspect the version i saw had been slashed/edited down for early TV, as there was no explanation for why Dr. Adrian wanted to use local fear of the ape to his advantage. Rated 3 out of 5 stars 01/25/23 Full Review Audience Member 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. Rated 3 out of 5 stars 01/31/23 Full Review Audience Member Horror lacking in interest value with Boris Karloff looking as old as he did 25 years later than this. The only real plus point is that the run time is no more than an inoffensive hour. Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars 02/06/23 Full Review Audience Member I just watched the movie and enjoyed it. Boris was outstanding and I liked the plot. I'm definitely going to watch this one again. Rated 4 out of 5 stars 01/11/23 Full Review Read all reviews
The Ape

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Movie Info

Synopsis Dr. Bernard Adrian (Boris Karloff) is researching a way to help a wheelchair-bound patient, Frances (Maris Wrixon), use her legs again. The only way he can achieve this is by procuring spinal fluid from a human. When an ape escapes from a circus, Dr. Adrian kills it in a confrontation and successfully uses its spinal fluid on Frances -- but he needs more. Using the ape's body as a suit, he kills townspeople in a crazed attempt to complete his plan.
Director
William Nigh
Screenwriter
Curt Siodmak
Production Co
Monogram Pictures Corporation
Genre
Horror
Original Language
English
Release Date (Theaters)
Sep 30, 1940, Limited
Release Date (Streaming)
Aug 7, 2015
Runtime
1h 2m
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