The chimpanzee, and his craft, are coated with a green, alien goo that causes him to grow at an incredible rate... and unfortunately a passing gila monster lizard sups from the liquid and transforms into a kaiju beast of its own.
Abraham is captured by the American authorities, led by Dr Linda Murphy (Arianna Scott), who has a childhood connection with the ape through the controversial work of her scientist father, Noah Murphy (Rudy Bentz).
Assisted by an old Russian friend, Eva Kuleshov (Katie Sereika), with whom there is obvious sexual tension and an unspoken past, Linda tries to study Abraham while tracking the escaped gila monster, which is tunnelling underground and has some kind of power-dampening field.
Abraham escapes while Linda is away, and it becomes a race against time as both giant creatures appear to be converging on Washington D.C.
The military, under the gung-ho and patronising General Delaney (R.J. Wagner) wants to blast both creatures off the face of the planet, but Linda believes that Abraham is still the ape she knew as a child and is really on the side of humanity.
Oh, and there's an alien ship coming round the dark side of the Moon that seems to be beaming some kind of mind control ray at the giant monsters.
Just another day at the office.
Originally crafted by the crew at The Asylum as a Godzilla vs Kong mockbuster, Ape vs Monster is an unsurprisingly awful - yet hilarious - flick that just manages to scrape into the "so bad it's good" category, as long as you're willing to cut it a lot of slack.
If you watch the film closely enough, you realise how little the two giant CGI beasties actually appear on screen, but also you gain an appreciation of The Asylum's masterful melding of stock footage with their own material to fill out the 88-minute flick.
It should also be noted that while the giant ape certainly resembles an oversized chimpanzee more than a direct rip-off of King Kong, the mutated gila monster bears more than a passing resemblance to Godzilla.
Dramatic action scenes are broken up by protracted, earnest, exchanges of waffle and technobabble in an attempt to stitch together a nonsensical story into something an easy-going (possibly drunk) audience might be willing to swallow.
And while it starts off far-fetched, the plot of Ape vs Monster rapidly goes so far off the rails that credibility is stretched beyond breaking point and the moment they start talking about "aliens" you can't help but wonder if you're somehow watching an entirely different movie.
However, I certainly don't regret the £2.35 I spent on Amazon to buy the DVD of this movie, and I can't wait to see what Abraham gets up to next.
Oh, and there's an alien ship coming round the dark side of the Moon that seems to be beaming some kind of mind control ray at the giant monsters.
Just another day at the office.
Originally crafted by the crew at The Asylum as a Godzilla vs Kong mockbuster, Ape vs Monster is an unsurprisingly awful - yet hilarious - flick that just manages to scrape into the "so bad it's good" category, as long as you're willing to cut it a lot of slack.
If you watch the film closely enough, you realise how little the two giant CGI beasties actually appear on screen, but also you gain an appreciation of The Asylum's masterful melding of stock footage with their own material to fill out the 88-minute flick.
It should also be noted that while the giant ape certainly resembles an oversized chimpanzee more than a direct rip-off of King Kong, the mutated gila monster bears more than a passing resemblance to Godzilla.
Dramatic action scenes are broken up by protracted, earnest, exchanges of waffle and technobabble in an attempt to stitch together a nonsensical story into something an easy-going (possibly drunk) audience might be willing to swallow.
And while it starts off far-fetched, the plot of Ape vs Monster rapidly goes so far off the rails that credibility is stretched beyond breaking point and the moment they start talking about "aliens" you can't help but wonder if you're somehow watching an entirely different movie.
However, I certainly don't regret the £2.35 I spent on Amazon to buy the DVD of this movie, and I can't wait to see what Abraham gets up to next.
In fairness, the random introduction of aliens is a standard element of the Godzilla series, so the Asylum is being somewhat faithful there.
ReplyDeleteThat's a good point, and don't get me wrong: I welcome the random introduction of aliens. What threw me was I didn't recall them in the American remake which this was "mockbustering" ;)
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