EDITOR’S NOTE: The Ape Man was on Chiller Theater on Saturday, September 3, 1966 at 1:00 a.m., Saturday, May 27, 1967 at 1:00 a.m. and Saturday, April 5, 1969 at 1:00 a.m.
Based on “They Creep in the Dark” by Karl Brown, this William Beaudine-directed, Barney Sarecky-written film stars Bela Lugosi as Dr. James Brewster, a scientist whose experiments have turned him into an ape man. He needs human spinal fluid to transform back to a man again, which as you can imagine, leads to him killing all manner of people when he becomes the ape (Emil Van Horn) version of himself.
By the end, his assistant Dr. Randall (Henry Hall) has been forced to keep injecting the quickly going mad doctor, ending with him breaking what’s left of it in their lab. The ape Randall flips out and strangles him then goes wild killing everyone he can to get that spine juice.
The next year, Monogram released Return of the Ape Man as a sequel to this, even if it has nothing to do with it.
This has the weirdest ending, as the protagonists escape and a man shows up in their car. They ask who he is and he says, “Me? I’m the author of the story! Screwy idea, wasn’t it?”
You can watch this on Tubi.
