Gorilla Suit Movies

[KingVidor]

Anyone know any good ones, or bad ones?  I liked Shaolin Invincibles, which had some great kung fu gorillas and Untamed Mistress, which had some horny gorillas on the make for one of those built like a brick s**thouse drive-in babes.   Come to think of it, those were both really good cheap movies.  I guess Robot Monster is too, but it's gorilla suits with space helmets, so not really the full gorilla suit salute.  I guess there are probably alot of them...

[Darkstar]

Night Fright is one of the worst gorrilla suit movies, it's about an alien that rampages through a small town only to be killed by a shop dummy filled with tnt.

the alien is just a guy in a gorilla suit with an alien mask on.

terrible.

[Andrew]

Here goes (with some poetic license):

Hillbillys (sic) in a Haunted House
The remakes of "King Kong" are guy-in-a-suit stuff
King Kong vs. Godzilla
The Beast that Killed Women
Congo (arrggghhhh!)
Escape from the Planet of the Apes
Time of the Apes
Konga
The Mighty Gorga
APE
Ken Begg can verify if "Mistress of the Apes" qualifies

That is all that jumps to mind for now, but there are plenty more.

Andrew

[Hairzilla]

D'oh! I knew that A.P.E....brrrr....would make the list.

[Abby]

Don't forget Bloody Ape and Bride and the Beast.

VEX Magazine has a nice expansive feature on all manner of Ape flicks.


http://www.vexmag.com/archives/print/03/main/index.html target=newwindow>THE APES OF WRATH

[Flangepart]

Wow, Abby, talk about usefull resources. Ya' know, I still have to hand it to Rick Baker for giveing the Deano D. Remake of K K what little respectability it has. The expressivness of the Kong Mask is important to the character. Espchualy the eyes. As for A*P*E....(Shudder).....i STILL hate that cruddy puppet more then the Gorilla! (Grumble,grumble,growl,growl.) Am i alone in this loathing?

[Ken Begg]

In answer to Andrew's point, Mistress of the Apes in fact featured your typical missing-links-with-protruding-foreheads.

The classic age of the gorilla suit movie was the '40s, when jungle movies and/or gorilla horror movies were popular.  Check out The Ape Man with Lugosi (on DVD as part of the Bela Lugosi Collection Part 2), The Ape (also out on DVD with British Intelligence) with Karloff, The Gorilla with The Ritz Brothers (on DVD  with Nabonga, a jungle movie/ape suit movie).    Also, if you have the Behind the Planet of the Apes disc, there's a clip from the '50s Gorilla at Large that looks just stunningly good.  I keep hoping that'll come out soon.  Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla is out on DVD also.

For more jungle oriented gorilla suit fare, check out Sinister Cinema for films like White Gorilla, Bride of the Beast and Beast of Borneo.   Just put 'gorilla' and then 'ape' into their search engine.

Lastly, if you're really interested, gorilla suit man Bob Burns made a great two-video documentary on gorilla suit men.  It's probably off market now, but if you keep an eye on Ebay it'll probably show up eventually.  It was really a fun effort.  If you have any interest, reply so, and I'll try to dig out my copy and ascertain the show's exact title.

[Vermin Boy]

For one of the worst ape suits ever committed to film, check out "Monsters Crash the Pajama Party" (The DVD of which, by the way, has my vote for the hands-down best disc of all time).

[ssvegita]

Try A*P*E and.......................Pretty woman.......... What';s with me and that movie?