Movies Similar to Night of the Bloody Apes (1968)

La Horriplante Bestia Humana is a gory, misogynist exercise in rape, wrestling, and thoracic surgery from Mexico's premier father-son "Z"-movie team René Cardona and René Cardona Jr. Essentially a remake of the elder Cardona's Doctor of Doom, laced with more sex and violence for more tolerant European audiences, this sleazy exploiter stars José Moreno as a brilliant but misguided surgeon (aren't they always in movies like this?) who tries to save his ailing son (Armando Silvestre) by transplanting an ape's heart into his chest. As one would expect, the results are slightly off-kilter, creating a hairy gorilla-man with a wrestler's physique who loves nothing more than to rape women and rip men's faces off. The only one who can put a stop to this horrific rampage is -- naturally -- a masked female wrestler (looking scarier than the monster!) who goes to the mat to teach the ape-man the error of his ways. As if this premise -- loaded with opportunities for nudity and explicit (though crude) gore murders -- weren't exploitative enough, the flying Cardonas splice in actual open-heart surgery footage to fully illustrate the Moreno's handiwork. The crowning moment (for the English-dubbed version, anyway) arrives when the cynical police chief dismisses the notion that the attacks are perpetrated by an ape-man: "It is more likely that you have been watching on your television too many pictures of terror!" Since its American release as Night of the Bloody Apes, this chunk of Mexi-horror sleaze has undergone numerous title changes in its quest for total anonymity, including Gomar, the Human Gorilla and the charmingly honest Horror and Sex. ~ Cavett Binion, Rovi