Psycho Ape! (2020) — Triskaidekafiles

PSYCHO APE!

WRITERS: Addison Binek, Steve Albers, Greg Deliso

DIRECTOR: Addison Binek

STARRING: Kansas Bowling as Nancy Banana

Bill Weeden as Dr. ZOOmis

Dylan Mars Greenberg as Fransicka Filler

Amanda Flowers as Petunia Filler

Steve Albers as the Psycho Ape

QUICK CUT: A young woman falls in love with a most unlikely companion.

THE MORGUE

Nancy - A young woman obsessed with apes, and with dreams to one day be the teenage Jane Goodall. She’s sweet, and kind, and very forgiving of multiple homicides.

Dr. ZOOmis - A man obsessed with finding the Psycho Ape! after encountering him when they both were younger, and determining he is pure evil.

Psycho Ape! - A monkey on a mission of murder.

TRISK ANALYSIS: Welcome back, Triskelions! I haven't made myself suffer enough lately, and I recently discovered a new cinematic messterpiece called Psycho Ape!. I uh, I really got nothing to add here. It may be the latest entry in the 'most recent movies I've done' competition. Also, it's kinda swinging for the bad fences deliberately, which is always a gamble. So let's just get into this...

The movie opens with some text and narration from Dr. ZOOmis, pondering whether or not humans are truly the number one species, and then promises no answers, but you are in for the dumbest, cheapest, monkey movie of them all. ...Well, at least we're open about it.

So 25 years ago, a monkey escapes from the Detroit Zoo, and goes on a rampage, while young Nancy Banana is throwing a teenage slumber party for all her teenage friends, and obsessing over simians.

When you gotta go on the run, it’s always wise to wear comfortable footwear.

I will say, I love all the references to other monkeys, but please, never remind me about Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla ever again.

Nancy has a one bunch mind, and just can't stop trying to turn every conversation towards monkeys in some way, much to her friends' chagrin. Kinda like me and comic books

Suddenly, her very teenage boyfriend shows up in a monkey suit to scare his very teenage girlfriend and her very teenage friends. He barely manages to not get a knife stuck in his face.

No one told me Red Guardian was gonna be in this!!

But fear not, he soon meets his untimely end, when the titular Psycho Ape! shows up and ends him. The Actual Ape then jumps into the room, and they think it's just the very teenage boyfriend again.

That goes horribly wrong for them, as the Psycho Ape! lives up to his name, goes ape, and murders everyone other than Nancy.

Later, the cops and Dr. ZOOmis show up, and he is someone who can actually outoveract Sutherland. Honestly, I wish this movie leaned a bit more into Halloween, but I do like it goes in its own direction and does it’s own thing.

I mean, that is a solid homage right there.

Dr. ZOOmis starts to go into a Psycho Ape! rap, and no, no, NOPE this is where I draw the line, no singing!

We jump forward 25 years to the present, and Psycho Ape! is living in a home, enjoying his bananas, and seems to have gotten away with everything. I have so many questions.

His morning routine is broken into by the Low Budge Film News report, filling us in on what we just saw. And there are some great jokes in the news crawl at the bottom, s'all I'm gonna say.

They show just how dangerous the Psycho Ape! is with a montage of surveillance footage of him murdering people.

Following the surveillance footage, Psycho Ape! leaves his home, and goes on a live in the moment murder spree of a bunch of people. This goes on for awhile. It is also gloriously gory in its ridiculousness.

It all wraps up when two women are having bathtime sexy fun times as a peeping tom watches along, and we get to slip in a bathtub reference to Nightmare on Elm Street, replacing the knives on Freddy's glove with, yes, bananas.

We then cut to New York City, I think, the movie didn't really specify clearly!, and meet the Filler Sisters, talking about the Psycho Ape! And boy they sure do live up to their names.

But we do get to take more of a break from the murder spree, which was fun but yes, I need a breather, to catch up with Nancy living alone with her collie son in the suburbs.

After a few more murders, and a brief drug trip, it's suddenly Halloween, with a few more nods to that movie. And then we divert for a far too overlong diversion with two girls arguing about which Pixar movie is best. The Filler sisters ain't got nothin' on these kids.

FINALLY Psycho Ape! finds himself on the doorstep of Nanners, and she makes THE BEST gasp and fall when she answers the door.

She wakes back up, recognises the ape, and he tries to calm her down, because he's not there to kill her. I guess.

They spend some time reconnecting, while ZOOmis stalks his prey, and eventually joins the party at her house.

Nancy urges Psycho Ape! to hide, which he does, diving under the table, as Nanners and ZOOmis chat.

While she reads off a list of monkeys she knows, Psycho Ape! ties together ZOOmis's shoelaces, so he is occupied when they make a run for it.

In a sudden twist of events, ZOOmis tricks and traps Psycho Ape! and we get another trippy sequence as the supposed doctor torments his captive.

This lasts another 25 years, ZOOmis is dead, and Psycho Ape! just suddenly escapes to keep this going.

Psycho Ape! meets up with Nanners at the beach, and they're partying hard when ZOOmis reveals he's Not Really Dead! Psycho Ape! kills him several more times, but he keeps coming back because... ???

We end up in NYC again, and Nancy wants her boyfriend to murder some people. The Filler sisters show up, and she declares they are annoying, kill them. Which has pretty much been me for the last hour.

ZOOmis shows back up to get the chase back on track, and as these things inevitably do, it ends up at the Empire State Building, and in black and white.

And it ends with one last attempt to murder ZOOmis as he is tossed off the building, in a sudden twist of irony, shouting Yippee Kai Yay, mother fucker!!

Do you really think you have a chance against us, Mr. Cowboy?

The army gets called in to end the situation, and make bad puns, and I will admit, I loudly lost it at "Looks like I picked the right week to start doing cocaine!!"

Eventually, one of the pilots gets through, and truly twas the airplane to the face that killed the beast. And that reference is so obvious, even the movie itself makes it, but oh well.

But we finally end with the Psycho Ape! stopped, ZOOmis back from the dead AGAIN, and he and Nancy patching things up, making a new friendship, and skipping off into the sunset. I guess??

If you don't try and kill your best friend, are you even really friends??

TRISK ASSESSMENT

Video: Pretty basic, not too bad, not too good.

Audio: Perfectly fine

Sound Bite: "Her dream of becoming the next Jane Goodall, crushed like the skulls of her friends under the Psycho Ape!'s paws"

Body Count: There is one plus to this movie; a mountain of bodies!

1 - Five and a half minutes and her teenage boyfriend gets nannered.

2 - One of the girls gets nannered through the back of the head

3 - Another gets her foot banged off

4 - A third gets a banana through the mouth

5 - A fourth uh...gets skinned in a flash. I guess.

6 - And the last gets slashed up.

7 - Random dude gets his heart ripped out.

8 - Banana Man Sign Spinner gets violently shat upon and pummeled

9 and 10 - Two men get poisoned ice cream

11 - Girl gets her foot chopped off.

12 - Dude gets a nanner to the eye

13 - And his girl takes one down the throat

14 and 15 - A double banana kill and kiss.

16 - Random women gets killed

17 - Cracked reader loses a hand

18 - Girl slips and falls on a banana peel and then curb stomped.

19 - Rude guy gets his arm ripped off.

20 - Girl gets Freddied in the bathtub

21 - Safe to assume Duckhead gets it next

22 - Quacking Tom gets his neck slit

23 - Pothead #1 gets nannered in the ear

24 - And then pothead #2

25 - Left Shark gets nannered to the face

26 - ZOOmis finds a dead man with bananas everywhere

27 - ZOOmis assistant chokes on poison Jell-o

28 - Prison guard stabbed in the dick

29 - Random guy gets bananad in the head

30 - One of the Filler sisters drowned in fountain

31 - And the other gets nannered shortly

Best Corpse: Does not compute, parameters exceeded. Okay, seriously, uh…curb stomping that one person’s head was pretty stand out.

Blood Type - A: Like I said, lots of blood, lots of gore, decent low budget effects!

Sex Appeal: You get a nekkid duck girl and friend. If that’s what you’re into.

Drink Up! Every time there’s a dancing interlude to change scenes

Movie Review: Lemme tell ya, when I sat down to write this, I thought I was gonna stomp on this movie like Psycho Ape stomped on that girl's face. The first time I watched it, I was so looking forward to it, and…I hated it. HATED IT. I’ve seen my fair share of trash, and this one just…did not hit me at ALL. I started to reconsider even ever bringing up the movie, but when I sat down to watch it again to take notes, I actually didn’t hate it AS much. I knew what I was in for, and I was able to enjoy the sheer ridiculousness of it. The movie is stupid, but that is entirely 100% on purpose. You can tell everyone is having fun, and that helps. It’s hard to really judge a movie trying this hard to be this bad, but I can still see the heart put into it, the direction is well done, and the acting is all right. Two out of five Congo board games

Entertainment Value: Once you let go and just enjoy the stupidity, there is a lot here to be entertained by, and it’s a lot of little moments. The kills are mostly enjoyable. The bewildering journey of “What even IS this??” and seeing just how ridiculous it’s gonna get. It takes a bit to settle into this silliness, but I still give it a three out of five rubber duckies.