Night of the Bloody Apes (1969) DVD

Featured on the Director of Public Prosecution s original 39-title video nasties list, at last you can see what all the fuss is about in this gore-geous new 16:9 transfer. René Cardona Sr - patriarch of Mexico s number one genre film-making dynasty - delivers this wonderfully silly tale of a dying young man given the heart of a gorilla to keep him alive. Unfortunately the man transforms into a murderous ape-like monster and goes on a girly hunt. Not one to be put-off, the surgeon (his father) tries again - this time with the heart of a female wrestler. This medical-horror-sci-fi masterpiece was written by René and his son René (who, incidentally, had a son called René), neither of whom had even a cursory knowledge of either medicine or science. This makes it w-a-a-y-yy more enjoyable.... No surprise then that this was filmed in just three weeks (in May 1968), largely in Mexico City s Chapultepec Park. While already chock full of gratuitous nudity and femmes-in-peril, US film-maker Jerald Intrator ( Orgy at Lil s Place , Satan in High Heels ) decided to improve on things by adding close-up, super-gory footage of open-heart surgery. He even filmed some new material to spice up the monster s attacks with sanguinary make-up effects and even more nudity