Empire of the Apes

EMPIRE OF THE APES
Writer/Director:Mark Polonia
Starring James Carolus, Elizabeth Costanzo
Availability: DVD released by MVD Entertainment and is available at most online retailers
Rating:

    Is Mark Polonia, like his dearly departed brother John, the Wesley Willis of movies?  How is it he's still making movies this traditionally awful after all these years?  Did he just never learn how to make a "good" movie, or is he in on the joke?  Now, I don't mean to sound harsh here.  However, if one is to view the Polonia's films as works of outsider art, you're able to appreciate them a little more.  Maybe, like Ed Wood, they were just always too ambitious to achieve their vision with what little budget they had.  Have you ever seen Saurians?  They wanted to make a movie about giant dinosaurs, so inside the film, you had some of the crudest stop motion effects ever.  Great stuff, but awful at the same time.

    First of all, I'd like to thank MVD for sending me a copy of this film to review.  When I first saw the trailer, I was worried.  I didn't know how I would endure.  Then, I saw the names of everyone involved.  Mark Polonia AND Brett Piper working on this?  Well, I can handle this.  A group of female fugitives crash land on an island inhabited by talking apes.  Naturally, the apes decide this is their opportunity to repopulate the earth, and decide to keep the women as prisoners.  At the same time, the warden is on their tail, and wants to return them to their prison ship.  It's all hopelessly derivative nonsense that will just put you to sleep if you think about it too much.

    It didn't take long for me to realize the proper mindset I needed to be in to enjoy this.  There are some things you will just have to accept while watching this.  There is some cool miniature stuff, that no doubt is Brett Piper's contribution to the film.  That being said, there's also some painfully bad CGI.  Not only that, but the ape costumes don't even approach convincing.  I imagine these masks didn't even run them $100 altogether.  They just hang off the actor's faces, and only one of them actually has the ability to make the mask move.  I'm a forgiving man, though, and I think that's because I grew up watching these no-budget wonders.  Shot on video movies were a big part of my childhood, especially ones from the Polonias.

    This film may be bad from just about every technical standpoint, but it's certainly never boring.  One wishes we could have seen at least a bit of nudity, but I don't think that's what Mark and producer David Sterling were going for here.  They wanted to pay tribute to the old Planets of the Apes movies, which were all incredibly family friendly.  Despite the lack of anything even resembling a budget, it is a relatively ambitious movie.  It's a true backyard production, but as anyone who has followed the work of the Polonias can tell you, they never grew out of that style.  This is what gives them their charm.  David "The Rock" Nelson's backyard productions seem like the work of a man who's more than a bit off his rocker.  The work of the Polonias is more charming.  They're just having fun.  Taking the piss as the Brits would say.  They must have just enjoyed the freedom of it.

    Now, by no means am I going to be too hard on this film.  As a reviewer, I did feel like I needed to warn you about its numerous flaws, but I had fun with it.  It's simple, undemanding, unpretentious fluff.  It certainly beats those awful movies Full Moon were churning out in their transitional period during the late 90s/early 2000s.  It definitely has more heart than any of the shit Asylum puts out regularly.  If you love bad movies, or at least have a fondness for classic shot on video cinema, you will probably end up enjoying this movie.  It wouldn't hurt to have some drugs on hand.

    Until next time, my fellow freaks and weirdos...