The Ape review

The Ape starring Boris Karloff came out in 1940 and is about a mad scientist (Karloff), who is testing on animals to find a cure for the beautiful young Frances who is bound to a wheelchair. The plot is basically a circus comes to town and the ape kills its trainer, whose cigar starts a fire, and the ape escapes and terrorizes the small village. Meanwhile the Dr (Karloff) takes care of the dying trainer, and decides to use his spinal fluids to create a serum to help Frances, but he needs more spinal fluid, but where can he find more. When the ape breaks into his house, he kills the ape and dons its skin to murder people to use for his experiments. The story is about the hunt for the ape, that is terrorizing the village. This is definitely not one of Karloff's best movies, it was one of the many b-movies that he starred in. The movie is also not terrible. Now as a horror movie, it isn't much on terror and more on suspense. It plays into the mad scientist trope but not in the way that some of the classics like Frankenstein do, as the dr in this movie's goal is to create a cure to save people, so his intentions are good, but his methods are immoral. The acting is ok, nothing great, none of the characters are really endearing other than maybe Frances. Most of the people in this town are complete assholes and intolerant of anything different, and there is the pointless subplot of the man cheating on his wife, that has nothing to do with the story other than to take up a minute or so of dialogue. Like I said an alright movie but nothing really memorable honestly, and even though Karloff is one of my favourite actors, he just isn't given much to work with here, the story isn't even very well developed though there is a great premise to work with. But that is the thing, some of the great actors like Karloff and Lugosi took some very low budget roles just to pay the bills, they did the best with what they had to work with though. Usually I talk about the pros and cons of the movie, but honestly I feel like I have already discussed both of those points already, I mean definitely worth throwing on for a fun old movie, but nothing to really get excited about. Would I recommend this movie? Well if you are a classic horror movie fan, or a fan of Boris Karloff, I would suggest giving it a view and adding it to your collection. However, I feel like most people can just skip it, as I really don't think fans of modern movies are going to have the same feelings about this movie as people like myself who are obsessed with classic movies. I do like this movie, but it isn't for everyone. To me this is the kind of movie you put on for two reasons, 1. your a fan of classic horror movies, or 2. you want to watch it with friends doing a Mystery Science Theater 3000 type of commentary. Again I hate to be so rough on it, as I do like this movie, but it just hasn't aged that well.