Lucy Ossorio (Norma Lazareno) is a luchadora. During her fight with Elena Gomez (Anna Thomson), Elena is thrown from the ring and fractures her skull. She is taken to the hospital for an emergency operation.
In the meantime, Dr. Krallman (José Elias Moreno) and his assistant, Goyo (Carlos López Moctezuma) are at the local zoo. They shoot a hypodermic into a gorilla to sedate it. They then steal the gorilla and bring it to Krallman’s secret laboratory. When the hospital calls Krallman must leave and operate on Elena. The results of the operation are not hopeful. Krallman returns home to tend to his son.
Krallman’s son, Julio (Augustin Martinez Solares), is gravely ill. He has leukemia and isn’t expected to live. Krallman decides to give Julio a transfusion using the blood of the gorilla he stole from the zoo. Worried about Julio being able to handle the operation Krallman also transplants the heart of the gorilla into Julio as well. At first it looks like the operation is a success.
Things go haywire when Julio turns into a man beast, breaks out of the laboratory and goes on a rampage raping and killing a woman. Krallman captures him and brings him back to the laboratory. Krallman now believes that he needs to counter the effects of the heart transplant by removing the gorilla heart and putting in a human heart. He decides that the comatose Elena is the perfect donor. Before he can perform another surgery Julio once again breaks out and begins killing and raping everyone he comes across.
Lucy’s boyfriend, Arthur Martinez (Armando Silvestre), is a lieutenant in the police department. When the gorilla is discovered to be missing it is first believed that the gorilla is killing everyone, however, Arthur comes to believe that a man beast is responsible for the carnage.
“Night of the Bloody Apes” AKA “La Horripilante bestia humana” AKA “The Horrible Man-Beast” AKA “Horror y sexo” AKA “Horror and Sex” AKA “Gomar: The Human Gorilla” AKA “Sex Monsters” was released in 1969 and was directed by Rene Cardona. The English version was released in the U.S. in 1972. It is a Mexican horror exploitation movie and a quasi luchadora film.
The movie is said to be a remake of Rene Cardona’s 1963 film “Doctor of Doom” and one of six luchadora films Cardona directed. To me the connection in both areas is slim. They both have a mad doctor, a monster and a luchadora. The mad doctor, however did brain transplants in one movie and heart transplants in this one. The monster was already created in “Doctor Doom”. Here the doctor creates him by experimenting on his son. The luchadoras in “Doctor Doom” are a main focus in the movie. In “Bloody Apes” they are only a sub plot.
What is a major claim to fame for this movie is the fact that it is part of a sub genre of film that are called, In Britain, a video nasty. A video nasty was a term of endearment to a select group of movies that were banned in Britain. The film sports two scenes where actual heart transplant footage is inserted as well as some gruesome violence, nudity and rape. Of course, some versions of the film have the juicy stuff and some don’t. The film was finally released uncut in Britain in 2002.
There is also one shot of an orangutan in one scene that magically turns into a guy in a gorilla suit. Needless to say there is only one ape in “Night of the Bloody Apes” and it’s killed off in the first fifteen minutes of the film.