Stupid F*cking Monkey Movies!
I checked out this new picture from the upcoming film, RISE OF THE APES and couldn’t help but want to punch somebody in the neck. The concept of this film is so utterly stupid I can’t even imagine somebody going through with it’s production at this point. Here’s some of the description: ….the origin story deals with the aftermath of man’s experiments with genetic engineering that lead to the development of intelligence in apes and the onset of a war for supremacy. Come on, are there people out there really dying for an origin story to PLANET OF THE APES? We can’t even get an explanation as to what in the hell happened at the end of the remake. Why start all over? And what’s with the CGI apes? How does making the apes look more modern and digital help an origin story? Anyway, I started thinking about the history of monkeys in horror films and it turns out they’re all stupid.
I loved MONKEY SHINES back in the day but when you sit back and really think about it’s plot you can’t help but laugh. A jealous helper monkey. Throw in the awkward amount of gratuitous quadriplegic nudity and you start to wonder why the hell you ever watched this film in the first place. CONGO is one of the most infuriating films ever made. And it has everything to do with Amy, the talking gorilla. In the book Amy uses sign language and has Peter translate for her. The movie has her wearing some sort of voice box that speaks what she’s thinking. It’s a fucking travesty on all counts.
There’s a reason KING KING is so great – he’s gigantic. Regular sized monkeys, apes, gorillas, orangutans, or whatever aren’t scary. If not used for mildly entertaining physical humor (see Clyde in EVERY WHICH WAY BUT LOOSE) they shouldn’t be used in film at all. Their presence is always deemed ridiculous from the start in these horror films. Either they start out as some sort of genius scientific study or some sort of house pet for some asshole that needs attention and by the time shit hits the fan the audience is like “yeah, any normal human being knew that was going to happen.” You hang out with a fucking monkey – bad stuff happens. Same goes with alligators, bears, aliens, and little kids that look evil.
So back to RISE OF THE APES….. why do we need a movie that uses an ancient formula to help explain an already proven franchise? Origin movies as a whole are the most useless form of film and almost never do anything to enhance a series. There’s no way this one breaks the norm. The apes have evolved and declare war on the human race, we get that. Do we really need to see them cramming for tests and forming sentences to truly grasp the concept?
Maybe it’s the booze talking but I just wrote an entire article on movie-monkeys. There are so many other horrific avenues to head down I can’t help but feel this is going to be one gigantic waste of time.