Vashirdfel Simply A Masterpiece

Sexyloutak Absolutely the worst movie.

StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Logan By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

MartinHafer This is not exactly an Ed Wood movie, though when I got it from Netflix his name was plastered on it--not the director and co-writer's, Adrian Weiss. Wood co-wrote this low-budget and creepy film but it lacks the tackiness and cheapness of his own directorial efforts--though it is pretty close. The use of lots of stock footage, while boring, wasn't as ineptly handled and the acting isn't quite as bad as you'd expect in a true Ed Wood picture. In addition, while this is a bad film, so much of it is rather dull and had NOTHING to do with the plot, so it really failed to excite the bad movie buff within me as well.The film starts off very well for a tacky 50s monster film and I wish they'd have stuck with this story idea throughout the film. However, the beginning and ending are all about a lady who is strangely attracted to gorillas but the middle is just some knucklehead shooting at stock footage of animals and wrestling with stuffed tigers. It's too bad because the plot about a woman who was a gorilla in a previous life is so goofy I wanted to see more. But, after about 20 minutes of this non-sense where she is hypnotized and talks about this past life--nothing else is said about this until about two minutes until the end of the film!! It's like they either forgot or they pieced two different stories together. Either way, when the film finally ends, it gets REALLY creepy, as the male gorilla doesn't exactly kidnap the lady but she goes off with him willingly--supposedly to become his lover. It's never exactly said, but it's strongly implied and you know that's what they were getting at in the final scene with her and her simian lover. Her expression is even happier than Ed Wood's in GLEN OR GLENDA when he first tries on an angora sweater! Talk about kinky! So is it worth seeing? Well, if you have any taste, definitely not. If you are a bad movie buff, by all means see it. However, if you get bored, fast-forward through the middle--you aren't missing anything you haven't already seen in a Tarzan film! Stupid, but not exactly classic Ed Wood stupid.

John W Chance Here's a good concept wasted. It's a mixture of Ed Wood's bizarre writing talents and a text book example of bad movie making.On their honeymoon at his mountain home, Dan Fuller's wife, Laura, (played by Charlotte Austin) encounter his gorilla, Spanky, which he keeps in the basement-- Dan is apparently a big game hunter. In one of the several high points of the film, she shows an almost animal attraction for the gorilla, and vice versa. Later that night in the bridal chamber, the gorilla sneaks in and they again have another smoldering staring session, climaxed by Spanky pulling off her nightgown. (Is Ed Wood trying to tell us something?) Naturally, the husband shoots and kills the gorilla.Dan then has a psychiatrist conduct hypnotic regression sessions on Laura, as she had been previously talking to him about the possibility of having had past lives. We then discover that in her past life, she had been a gorilla! Of course, the 'hypnotic regression' theme was obviously drawn from the number one best selling book of 1956, 'The Search for Bridey Murphy,' in which a doctor regressed an American housewife who spoke in an Irish brogue and recounted in great detail her previous life as Bridey Murphy in Cork County, Ireland in the 18th century. We also can't help catching a little spin here on 'King Kong' (1933), for in this case the girl has a thing for the gorilla too! Dan then decides to take Laura with him to 'Africa' on safari for new animals. Here the film takes a sharp turn into obvious bad movie making with a Must To Avoid in capital letters: the dual personality theme is abruptly dropped and forgotten for the next 30 minutes or so. Instead we are subjected to pointless sequences of a tiger running through the jungle, fighting what appears to be a crocodile, and finally attacking Dan, who had been cluelessly stalking towards the camera seemingly oblivious to Laura's screams or the roars of the tiger, in non tension building shots.Finally, in the last five or six minutes of the film, Wood's ambivalent identity theme returns, as does a gorilla, who sweeps a sexually hungry looking Laura off her feet and takes her to the Bronson caves where she becomes queen of the gorillas. The end.As others have noted, Charlotte Austin's sexual stares are the high point of the film, and the low point is the needless and extended middle section that could have been totally dropped. If only the tightly done and well scripted first fifteen minutes could have continued with the development of Laura's sexual 'awakening!' We keep waiting to see her turn into a gorilla, as was done by Raymond Burr in the much better 'Bride of the Gorilla' (1951), but it never happens; we get the tedious tiger segments instead. A good concept has been disappointingly wasted here.Charlotte Austin's sexual stares linger in the mind, but not the rest of the film. I'll have to give it a two and half.

Woodyanders Rugged big game hunter Dan Fuller (a solid and likable performance by Lance Fuller) discovers much to his dismay that his lovely new bride Laura (a nicely sexy portrayal by fetching brunette Charlotte Austin) has a most troubling and peculiar affinity for gorillas. Dan is forced to shoot his pet ape Spanky (Steve Calvert in a funky suit) dead after the big brute breaks free from his basement cage and goes after Laura. Dan takes Laura with him on a safari to Africa. The expedition not only runs afoul of two lethal tigers, but also a couple of hulking gorillas who abduct Laura. Director Adrian Weiss milks plenty of compellingly aberrant thrills from the typically outlandish script by the notorious Ed Wood, Jr.: Weiss treats the weird and perverse premise with admirable seriousness, relates the gloriously wacky story at a steady pace, and concludes things on a bravely downbeat note. Naturally, Wood's script features the inevitable reference to angora sweaters and incorporates a pretty far-fetched reincarnation theme into the already heady mix (Laura was a gorilla in a previous life!). Kudos are in order for the surprisingly sound and sincere acting by sterling leads Fuller and Austin; they receive sturdy support from Johnny Roth as loyal native houseboy Taro and William Justine as helpful psychiatrist Dr. Carl Reiner. The scenes with the savage tigers attacking people are staged with rousing aplomb. Roland Price's sharp black and white cinematography and Les Baxter's sweeping orchestral score are both up to par. A pleasingly offbeat and unusual little oddity.

carolsco This is probably the best (or at least unique) of Edward D. Wood, Jr.'s film.What sets this film apart is that the first third of the film, dealing with reincarnation, is genuinely interesting, with fairly good dialog, acting and a genuine sense of atmospheric strangeness. The dream sequences are unique for their time and are quite effective.Sadly, once the film moves to Africa, the film grinds to a halt. Only the downbeat ending lives up to the promise of the first part of the film, but this film shows that Wood did have his moments.Probably the best part of the film is its unique score by Les Baxter. The music combines Baxter's trademark exotica with a genuine vein of unhealthy, yet bittersweet, romanticism that is truly singular and very effective. It might be interesting to some to know that Baxter used two cues from this film in his landmark exotica album PORTS OF PLEASURE.