Classic Horror: The Ape

My second classic horror movie is The Ape starting Boris Karloff. If you don't know who Karloff is, then you need to start watching the classic horror films. He's is one of the original and great horror actors. This movie is not exactly horror, but Karloff's character could be called a mad scientists so if fits into the horror genre.

This movie is about a doctor who is obsessed with curing paralysis. He's lost family members to the condition and is determined to find a cure. While this is going on there's an escape Ape running around town terrorizing everyone.

So since this movie was done in 1940 it is a very raw edited movie. Scenes are short, they either are cutoff by another scene or skipped altogether. Talkies were still improving at this time and I believe that some of the dialogue was recorded after the film was made, it appeared so in some of the scenes. Yes, there are mistakes like these, but most movies had these issues back then.

I still wouldn't call this movie horror, maybe slight macabre is more likely, but I can see how this movie would scare people back then. It's not a great movie, but it is decent by standards back then. Today I do not think a man in an ape costume would get people scared, but if you look at movies like Planet of the Apes and so on you can see who we do fear ape, animals that are too closely related to us.

You are not missing much if you decide to skip this movie. There really isn't anything ground breaking or terrifying in it.