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A Passion For Horror
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The Ape Man (1943)
(a.k.a Lock Your Doors)
Directed by William Beaudine
The Ape Man is a 1943 black and white film starring Bela Lugosi. Lugosi plays a slightly mad and more than slightly hairy scientist, Dr. James Brewster, who has opted to be the guinea pig in his own experiments. Brewster has been conducting research into the link between humans and primates and has injected himself with a serum that has, perhaps, not so much aided him in finding the missing link, as turning him into it! Yep. He is one hairy dude, walks with a stoop, and does all but trail his knuckles along the floor. The doctor is a changed man and he is not happy about it. Fortunately he is still man enough to know what the answer is: human spinal fluid. Brewster believes that a good old dose of someone else's spinal fluid, injected into his own spinal column, will take away his animal urges once and for all. There is a problem though (isn't there always?) Brewster's associate, Dr George Randall, refuses to help him because the removal of the fluid would be fatal to the donor. When Randall refuses to help, Brewster goes bananas and, aided and abetted by his trusty sidekick, the laboratory gorilla, he goes on a killing spree and collects the much needed fluid. There are some mildly amusing scenes in The Ape Man, like, for instance, Brewster's first attempt to reverse the changes within him. He forces the unwilling Randall to administer the injection, which Randall does under the watchful eye of Brewster's gun-toting sister Agatha. After the injection, Brewster stands up and proceeds to parade around the room jerking up and down in an attempt to straighten up his posture, while his gorilla watches, fascinated, from its cage, and mimics his ever action. It's a not side-splitting scene, but it is funny. Overall, I would have to say that The
Ape Man is not a particularly
good film. It is probably a must-see for the true Lugosi fan, but for
everyone else it is just a perhaps see if there is nothing better to
do. With a runtime of a little over an hour though,
the film does not last long enough to ever enter the realms of being
truly annoying.
CAST Bela
Lugosi
... Dr. James Brewster
DVD DETAILS Run time: 68 minutes Filmed in black and white Aspect ratio: 1.33:1 |
