Bela Lugosi stars here as a crazy scientist-type who somehow or another is turned into a half-ape man and he's not too happy about it so he goes around killing folks and stealing their spinal-fluid with the help of his gorilla sidekick. This partner is obviously a guy in a suit since I guess they hadn't figured out how to film an actual gorilla at this point in time. The makeup job here makes Lugosi look very Amish or perhaps more like Alley Oop. Bela also has a security camera in his mad scientist lab with a little T.V. monitor to spy on intruders which I think woulda been pretty futuristic in 1943. Director William Beaudine amazingly made more movies than Jess Franco in his career including a bunch of those Bowery Boys pictures and other cheaply made stuff. This movie probably woulda been better if Satch or Mahoney showed up. Only really watchable to fans of Bela Lugosi and his over the top acting style since both are featured plenty here or fans of cheap DVD horror movie sets since it's on a few of those also.
I guess this was successful enough at the time since there was a RETURN OF THE APE MAN a year later but it has none of the characters from this one in it.
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