Summary
A sassy all-girl rock band that sings about sexually transmitted disease and ape abductions, an omniscient scientist from a nearby university with an unusual childhood in the Florida Everglades, a tenderhearted mechanic who nonetheless reeks of machismo, a perpetually angry small-town sheriff, a parcel of endearingly doofy deputies, a virtually comatose young girl with an ear-splitting scream, and, of course, a man romping around in a cheap gorilla suit. All the requisite elements for a good old-fashioned beach party monster movie. What more could you want?
Warning! Spoilers ahead!
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Barbara's Rant
The man in a gorilla suit has been a staple of cheap horror cinema for decades. Sometimes the man in a gorilla suit is, in fact, the official monster of the movie, sometimes he is just peripheral, an accessory to the main villain. In either case, the ape-man is often that special little extra spice that tips a film over into B-movie classic status.
So I can hardly fault this movie, from a historical perspective, for using the basic man in a gorilla suit for the Skunk Ape, especially since this movie is a deliberate reworking of all the goofy, low-budget, Roger Corman-ish beach movies that have gone before. But I still have to say that I would have expected a monster called a Skunk Ape to at least have a white strip down its back, maybe even a furry white mohawk tuft on top of its head. After all, monsters adorned with taped-together carpet scraps have almost as venerable a history as do gorilla-suit monsters. I understand the desire to maintain the simple elegance of the plain gorilla suit, but I still think the Skunk Ape would have been doubly delightful with a line of carpet scraps glued down his back.
The foul odor is a good step, of course, towards making the monster unique and specific, but I still think it's a shame that a monster with an interesting name like Skunk Ape isn't visually distinguished in any way. Things might be different if movie theaters and DVD players were equipped with scent generators of some kind. Then the unusual odor of the Skunk Ape would be directly perceptible by the audience. Maybe they should put scratch-n-sniff cards into the DVD case with instructions on when to scratch. It's hard to get a really good, specific scent into those things, though. It can't just be a generic stench because that wouldn't be any better than the generic gorilla suit.
Another alternative might have been to distinguish the monster in the way that he moved. I understand the deliberate commentary on the fact that no man dressed in a gorilla suit in any movie ever has actually born any resemblance to a real gorilla. I understand that a Skunk Ape of course would not be expected to move like a normal gorilla. I even understand that a Skunk Ape, named for its aroma rather than for any actual kinship with a skunk, should not be expected to move anything like a skunk. But this thing lives in the Florida Everglades. It must have to swing through trees or slog through mud or swim though marshes. I can't believe that didn't have some kind of impact on its gait. After all, as Science Man says in his delightful closing speech (The only thing I love more than a pompous sciency-sounding opening speech is a pompous sciency-sounding closing speech.) these creatures have been, "moving and adapting to stay away from the push of civilization." The Skunk Ape didn't really show me that he has adapted to his surroundings in any way. On the other hand, I absolutely loved it when the Skunk Ape started to bust a move at the party, so maybe he merely adapts instantaneously to his surroundings, be they swampland, quaint seaside village, or raucous beach party. That is, perhaps he did move differently when he was in the Everglades, but once he arrived on Merriville Island he immediately adopted a more suitable, human gait.
On another subject entirely, the lighting was fabulous throughout - vibrant, evocative, sculptural. I loved it. And for all my complaints about the Skunk Ape, he wasn't really on screen all that much (which might be another minor gripe, actually) and the rest of the cast was great - just the right mix of real person and B-movie cliche, so that the whole movie came off like an episode of Mystery Science Theatre 3000, but with the 'bots' quips wrapped up into the movie itself.
The one character that I found slightly jarring was the doctor. This feels like an extremely bad complaint for me to be making, but I thought it was a little odd that she was a woman. Obviously, there is nothing wrong or jarring or odd in real life about a female doctor. But the rest of the cast of this movie was so clearly derived directly from the stock characters of monster movies and teen sex romps of the 50's and 60's that it was odd to see a character who has no discernable lineage in those films. Women doctors or scientists generally only appear in those movies if her father is a doctor and she is acting as her father's assistant or nurse. So, as much as I hate to object to the appearance of a competent female doctor in a movie, I have to say that I found it inappropriate in this context.
To close this review on an upbeat note, because it really is a very fun movie and deserves to end with a compliment, I think I'm developing a little crush on Deputy Bob. He's just so gosh-darned upbeat and enthusiastic about everything. I've never seen anyone so happy about a poor-quality plaster cast of a monster foot, although I suspect that if I were ever in a position to make a plaster cast of a monster foot (and I like to think that I'd make a better quality cast than Deputy Bob made) I would be awfully excited about it, too.
BARBARA JO
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