A strong finish to this year’s Ape-ril. So strong it could rip your jaw off, play with it for a bit, and then politely try to put it back on like nothing happened. I sat down to watch Johannes Roberts’s tight 89-minute ape-fueled gore-a-rama the other night with a gummy and half a pint of Chunky Monkey, and let me tell ya, it was hittin’. Almost as hard as Ben the chimp. Apes are strong, in case you haven’t picked up on that by now.
Did you know right now there’s a chimp civil war happening in Uganda? The once-strong Ngogo chimpanzee community in Kibale National Park, one of the largest ever studied, with around 200 apes at its peak, has splintered over the past several years in a bloody power struggle for ape supremacy. It’s wild, because it sounds like a story ripped straight from a Michael Crichton novel.
Like Brian De Palma, Aussie director Richard Franklin was very much a disciple of Alfred Hitchcock. In fact, Franklin was such a devotee that, while attending USC, he was determined to get Hitchcock’s Rope (1948) screened on campus. This effort led to Hitchcock personally calling the school, and Franklin inviting him to give a lecture, which he did. The two struck up a friendship, and years later, in 1983, Franklin would go on to direct Psycho II.
A glance at Franklin’s filmography paints the picture of a true genre filmmaker. The guy loved horror and suspense, high-concept ideas that practically pitch themselves. Movies that feel Hitchcockian, but updated for modern audiences. Like in 1979, when Franklin landed on the idea: “What if someone made Jaws… but with chimps?”
Not since the dawn of man (around 2014) have I dedicated an entire month to ape cinema, but I’m back, and this time it’s personal! After listening to every album by Gorillaz and finishing Donkey Kong Bananza a few months ago, my body is ready. *Starts beating chest. This month I’m gonna live like an Apeman. Hey, you gonna eat that nanner over there?
Last time, I reviewed the OG Planet of the Apes films, but this time I’m tackling KILLER ape movies. “Oh sweet, like Shakma and Monkey Shines?” NO! WRONG! Those are monkeys. I’m talking about apes, which turned out to be a lot harder than anticipated if the goal was to watch GOOD movies.
