The Ape Man tries for straight horror, but yields more laughs, albeit all unintentional. Directed by the notorious William “One-Shot” Beaudine (Billy the Kid vs. Dracula), it stars Bela Lugosi as a renowned gland expert whose bizarre experiments have led him into hiding in his secret basement laboratory.
It seems he’s turned into a half-man/half-ape and sleeps in a cage with his trusty gorilla (one of the worst monkey suits the screen has seen). He doesn’t really look ape-like at all, resembling Grampa Teen Wolf more than anything else. Wishing to reverse his condition, Lugosi craves the fresh spinal fluid of the newly dead. He and his gorilla pal roam the streets at night so the ape can do the killing for him. A bunch of nosy reporters try to figure out who’s behind it all before more bodies are slain. Even at 64 minutes, it takes its damn sweet time getting there.
This is the kind of dreck that likely led Lugosi straight to Smack Central. But the worst (and yet best) thing about it is the end, when our hero reporter and his gal pal shutterbug look over at the creepy guy who’s been peering in windows the whole time (and looks like Conan O’Brien with a chromosome deficiency) and ask, “Hey, who are you?” The creepy guy turns to the camera and says, “Who, me? I’m the author of the story! Screwy idea, ain’t it?” and then rolls up his car window, on which is shoe-polished “THE END.”
You got that right: screwy, indeed! —Rod Lott