A*P*E
North Korea's first act of aggression was not an actual bomb, but a financial one. Even Helen Keller could see that this movie is a cheap knock-off of King Kong. To give you an idea of the quality, picture a movie made by a bunch of interns from Toho who were really bad hires. The bipolar biped makes it oceanic voyage, after being forced from his home, but still leaves himself time to fight a toy…I mean, giant shark. It is as dumb as it sounds. When it reaches mainland, no model set is safe. The rule of thumb with Ape is that if you have seen one of these giant monsters stomping around a city films, then you have really seen all that this movie has to offer. As long as you know that you are getting nothing new, then you can watch this movie in the right mindset- as a fun piece of fluff. A highlight of this rampage is when the highly-hairy humanoid wanders onto the set of a martial arts movie. The actors react naturally to the sight of such a beast: they attack it with their prop weapons. It goes about as well as you would expect. The severely sight-impaired hang-glider pilot who fails to notice a 35-foot gorilla is also worth a mention. On the plus side, it is not as bad as the 1976 version of King Kong or the sequel King Kong Lives. That is good, except for the fact that those movies are utterly awful and should not be compared to anything in terms of quality, save for maybe the Black Plague. The movie sucks, plain and simple…but it does so in style. It is a fun film for lovers of the genre.The Grapes of Death
French zombie films apparently do not age like fine wine. Of course, the movie is really not that good, so I do not think that genetic decomposition is at fault here. Out in the boondocks of France, the winemakers are using pretty harsh toxins on their fields to keep the bugs away. For some unrelated reason, the people in the immediate area start to get sick and grow weird sores all over their body. This is what happens when you have sex with Tommy Lee! The sickness leads them to wandering around aimlessly and killing any people that might show up. Coincidentally, a young woman is riding a train into wine country under the auspices of meeting her fiancé. The joy of her trip fades right around the time that the girl she meets is killed by one of the grape victims. This leads to long sequences of her walking around the hills and occasionally being menaced by puss-oozing yokels. One pretty good bit has her being led into a village by a young blind woman. When they get there, her friends and family are either dead or zombified, but our heroine does not have the heart to tell her. In all honesty, the film is better than I thought it would be. Of course, I thought it would be incredibly awful, so bear that in mind. As far as zombie films, you can do better. But, if you want a French zombie film, there is only one.Keiko En Peligro
In hindsight, I should not rent movie solely on their similarity to South Park episodes. A whale- Keiko- is in a Mexican version of Sea World, but is inexplicably sick. His people, it turns out are aliens who sent him to Earth to study human beings up close. Their visit coincides with a school trip to said water park where the aliens meet their match…literally. To clarify, this is nearly the same plot as the Season 9 episode Free Willzyx, which involves the kids being tricked by park workers into thinking that the whale is an alien, leading them to 'rescue' the animal in attempt to restore him to his home on the Moon. Yeah, that one is actually funny. In real life, Keiko was the name of the whale from Free Willy, who was a celebrity in Mexico before he was yanked up by America for the infamous trilogy. Yeah, they made three of them. This movie is very under the radar, which made me think that I could be uncovering the next Riki-Oh or something. In case you had not noticed, I am trying not to talk about the actual film. Yeah, it's bad. It is bad sci-fi and bad comedy in one big crock pot, crock being the operative word. On the plus side, the lead alien/human guy looks like William Petersen circa Manhunter, only in a green jumpsuit and mascara. That is pretty much it. Move on already.
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