Incognito Cinema Warriors XP – Episode 1 – Bride of the Gorilla

2008Official Site
Directed by Brandon Scott, Ryan P. Davis, and Rikk Wolf
Created by Rikk Wolf, Rob Atwell, and Kyle Chestnut

A dual review! Yes, TarsTarkas.NET attempts to get creative and review both a fantastic fan-series episode of Incognito cinema Warriors XP and the movie they riff on, Bride of the Gorilla! Will we succeed? Or will we just alienate our audience because there are no boobs in this movie? And what role will former President Taft serve? Find out all of this in the Dual Review, starting……NOW!

Incognito Cinema Warriors XP is a fan series produced in Kansas City, Missouri, that launched in 2008. For the two of you who read bad movie websites and have no idea, there was a show called Mystery Science Theater 3000 that riffed on bad movies, thus Incognito Cinema Warriors XP tries to follow in the footsteps of the greatest show that was ever made. No, not Salute Your Shorts! MST3K! Why else would I bring it up? Geez… So we have the same formula (one dude, two bots, evil scientist, awful movies, zombies) Okay, the zombies are different, because the plot is slightly altered. ICWXP has produced several episodes (three have been released as of this writing, with a few shorts and two more episodes in various stages of productions.) The production values are top notch, the kinds of things you want to see from a fan film. Their official site has downloads and wallpapers and images and stuff. There is also a secret section that will mail you 50 pounds of gold if you find it! Except that secret section probably doesn’t exist.

So the basic run-down of the show’s plot is: In an undisclosed Midwestern city (Kansas City), CORPS (Command of Re-Animate Processing and Suppression) fights zombies, but they all die except Commander Rikk Wolf, who ducks into the Cine-A-Sorrow Theater to hide out. There, he encounters two wise-cracking worker droids – Topsy-Bot 5000 and Johnny Cylon – and the trio is soon being threatened by the theater’s mad scientist owner Dr. Harrison Blackwood, who traps them in Theater 6 and forces them to watch his crappy movies. Because otherwise, Dr. Blackwood will open the doors and in come the zombies! So the riffing begins as the movies roll, mixed in with the required host segments. ICWXP promises that there will be a larger post-apocalyptic plot as the series continues, but as this is a fan series it can go in any direction. Looking ahead, they already have cast changes like most fan productions.

But first the Roll Call!

Commander Rick Wolf (Rikk Wolf) – agent of C.O.R.P.S. (Command of Re-Animate Processing and Suppression) trapped in Kansas City as it is overrun with the undead. He takes refuge in a movie theater that just happens to have talking robots and a mad scientist who forces them to watch crappy movies or else he’ll open the doors and the undead will feast on their flesh. Well, Rikk’s flesh, I guess the robots will just watch. Topsy-Bot 5000 (Rob Atwell) – The more sarcastic and less liking of humans of the two bots. And he has popcorn for a head! His voice totally reminds you of Tom Servo’s first voice, and he even fills the Tom Servo role. Is 2’1″, 35 pounds, and 54 years old. See, I read the wallpaper.jpg! How much of that weight is popcorn? Johnny Cylon (Zach Legler) – The Crow T. Robot because his arms work. Less likely to turn you into a gorilla. Is 1’5″, 15 pounds, and 51 years old according to his wallpaper.jpg. Dr. Harrison Blackwood (Rob Atwell) – The deranged inventor who runs the Cine-A-Sorrow Theater and mysteriously disappeared, only to return as soon as Rikk Wolf is trapped in the theater to force Rikk and the bots to watch crappy movies.

As the show begins, a death metal opening scream masquerading as a song explains the dead have risen from the grave and eat Rikk Wolf’s squad. This is set to comic book graphics done up in flash or something similar. Rikk hides in the theater and meets the bots and are forced to watch films. Yada yada yada. Then it breaks into a more friendly ICWXP theme song as various clips of this and what I am guessing is the next episode’s host segments. So now we know Rikk Wolf’s band is death metal, a genre that oddly enough I don’t listen to. I did like the ICWXP part of the theme.

The host segments are done up with a laugh track, and Rikk Wolf is so obviously dubbed it is amazing. A crashing helicopter filled with zombie cheerleaders forces them into Theater 6, where Dr. Blackwood appears to start his threats and movies.

First they sit through the trailer to The Hideous Sun Demon, and then the most Italian stereotype ever demands they eat popcorn. If you don’t, he’ll turn you into a pizza! Or kill you in a mob hit. Finally, the feature presentation starts…

Bride of the Gorilla

1951
Directed and written by Curt Siodmak

Bride of the Gorilla is a movie about a dude who turns into a gorilla, and the Bride who loves him. Isn’t that sweet? Well, it’s supposed to be a horror film! Instead, it’s just a horrible film. And it is public domain, meaning you can find it everywhere. Even in your underpants. What is it doing there? You perv!

Rumor has it that the entire cast hated each other, and they probably hate you. Edward G. Robinson Jr. was supposed to star, but he got fired because he wrote some bad checks. Let that be a lesson to you. Bride of the Gorilla was shot in either 10 or 7 days, depending on which websites you believe. I believe them both and think it is a Schrodinger’s Cat situation. Expand your mind, dudes!

A Dual Review means Dual Roll Calls!

Barney Chavez (Raymond Burr) – A grumpy, ignorant, lustful, abusive rubber plantation supervisor who somehow is a giant ladies man and makes his way into the bed of the boss’s wife. Then he marries her after he kills the boss. Then he becomes a gorilla and people still love him, until they shoot him dead. Raymond Burr later fought Godzilla and then was Perry Mason and Ironside and Rear Window. Mrs. Dina Van Gelder (Barbara Payton) – A trophy wife of the ancient Klaas Van Gelder who spends her spare time falling in love with or having others fall in love with her. Then she marries a gorilla and becomes a sitcom plot. Or dies. Either one works. Police Commissioner Taro (Lon Chaney Jr.) – Yeah, this guy is totally a native dude who went to school. And I am Napoleon. Excuse me while I go invade Russia… Wolfman was slumming it in these low-budget horrors. Dr. Viet (Tom Conway) – How much does a Tom Conway? Oh, wait, that’s the wrong guy. Dr. Viet is the local doctor who bumbles around and eventually shoots the main character. To help him. Klaas Van Gelder (Paul Cavanagh) – The rubber plantation owner who is brutally punched and then a snake bites him because he’s a giant baby and needs to get up. What you gonna do about it, cry baby? Wahh! Oh, wait, he’s dead. Al-Long (Giselle Werbisek) – Nice to see the evil witch from Snow White is still getting work! She’ll curse me for that joke, you know. I’m now going to get turned into a kinkajou. That’s cool, because kinkajous rule.

Jack Broder presents! Up yours, Jack Broder!

In the deep jungles of stock footage land (where black jaguars from south America, Leopards from Africa, and Komodo Dragons from the SE Asian Islands live together in harmony) there are rubber plantations where rich white people live. This is the Amazon jungle area, so ignore all those animals that aren’t supposed to be there.

Barney Chavez is a constantly annoyed man hired to run the rubber plantation by its owner, Klaas Van Gelder. Chavez longs for the days of slavery so the help doesn’t run off to start their own rubber plantations. What a nice guy! Van Gelder is an elder, and by that, I mean he must be like 99 years old. And yet, he’s robbing the cradle with his wife Dina, who is like 30. Of course, she’s busy boning Barney Chavez, because men so angry it sweats out of them are so sexy. I guess when you are trapped in the jungle with an old dude, you get desperate. But at least she isn’t sleeping with a native guy! That would totally blow the 1951 audience’s minds. Luckily, their horrible chemistry together is good enough to fool Klaas Van Gelder for the time being.

Barney’s anger and leaving the job early to try to have sex with the boss’s wife somehow causes someone to die on the job today. This concern over the loss of a man’s life is summed up in Klaas upset for a few seconds while Barney doesn’t care at all. He was only a native dude, so no one cares. There is also the Dr. Viet, who is a white guy despite being named after part of an Asian country. It’s totally crazy! Dr. Viet declares that white people shouldn’t live in the jungle too long, and cites Klaas’s low blood sugar as proof. Yeah…Hypoglycemia, the jungle killer. There is also a creepy old lady there who looks like when the evil queen in Snow White disguised herself as an old woman to give Snow White a poisoned apple, except this is the lady’s real face and she’s the local servant Al-Long. Al-Long? Is she a Muslim Latin American Witch? Just where the heck is this jungle at???

Oh, Barney was also banging the daughter of one of the workers, so Klaas Van Gelder fires him right after saying grace before dinner. Oddly enough, Klaas then leaves dinner, as does Dr. Viet, so now Barney and Dina are alone, where she reveals she doesn’t want him to go. So then, Barney goes outside (does no one actually eat the dinner???) and another of the servants, a younger lady, demands that Barney take her with him when he goes because he said he would, but he blows her off. Oh, Barney!

Outside, Barney confronts Klaas, who hits him after he finds out his wife loves Barney. Barney punches Klaas back, hitting him so hard a snake bites him and he dies. Okay, the snake bites him because Klaas just lays there after being punched and looks at the snake as it slowly slithers forward and then he is bitten. Good thing it wasn’t a poisonous snail or Klaas would still be lying there to this day waiting for it to bite him. This movie is already long enough! Al-Long watches all this because that’s what spooky witch ladies do. She later puts some weird plant leaves on the dead Klaas and chants spells while Barney is off trying to convince Dina to run away with him.

The next day police commissioner Taro (Boris Karloff Jr playing an unconvincing native guy who went to school and is now the Poice Commissioner) is trying to find out what the frak happened. Despite having footprints of Barney in the garden he can’t prove anything. Remember, this is the days before CSI and red-headed cops making smart-alec quips as they don sunglasses and songs by The Who blare out.

Breaktime for the film as Rikk finds a chainsaw on the theater floor, so he goes to leave to slice up some zombies, Texas chainsaw massacre style! But Dr. Blackwood has installed beacons (this show’s version of movie sign) and threatens to open the doors to outside and let in thousands of zombies. Just opening the door causes Rikk and the Bots to scatter back into Theater 6.

Police Commissioner Taro explains the mysterious leaves of the plant and how they are spooky, while Al-Long says that Barney wasn’t in the garden when Klaas was bitten. But the cops confiscate her poisonous plant. Or at least the cop is supposed to, but the one sent to search her room doesn’t bother to take the plant with him when he leaves. That’s some great police work this film has! Taro waxes poetic about how now that he is educated he isn’t as connected to the people in town anymore. That’s great, maybe you should use your pay to hire a psychiatrist.

Now Barney and Dina are gonna get married! Thus, they have a party with a bunch of random stuffy people who also run various rubber plantations, including a huge fat dude. Who knew William Howard Taft was in the rubber business? Maybe this guy is eating the rubber! Time to sign on the bottom line with Commissioner Taro doing the job of signing over the deed to the plantation to the couple for some reason. Maybe he earns some side cash as a notary public?

Barney’s hand turns all black and he bolts from the room. but it is all fine moments later and non-negro. Great, Barney has reverse Michael Jackson disease! Later, Barney is hearing all the sounds of the jungle. What we call the bungle in the jungle, and Barney can’t resist its siren song, thus leaving his wife alone on their wedding night! D’oh!

Something happens to his hands again, but thanks to the magic of the jungle stock footage they chose to fill the rest of the jungle scene with we don’t see exactly what has happened to Barney just yet, until a POV-shot reflection in the water shows…he’s a gorilla!!!! Holy given away in the title of the film, Batman!

They find Barney delirious in the jungle the next morning and call Dr, Viet. The jungle will do that to people.

Rikk and the Bots just bolt from the theater, and I don’t blame them. This host sketch involves an ever-increasing amount of plants showing up and causing the set to get dark, just like in the movie’s jungle scenes. Do you get it? Good. We got Zombie Signal!

So I guess Barney has been turned into a succarat (or Sakura or Sukura or Sakurat or however every different person who has watched this film spelled it) – the famous jungle demon that Police Commissioner Taro mentions that is being spotted in the jungle. It is so famous it was made up for this film, thus the over 9000 different spellings on the internet. But we have the right spelling at TarsTarkas.NET, because we declare it so. So there! Nyeh nyeh nyeh!

Taro complains he can’t bring Barney to justice, but the jungle will totally get him! So the cop is perfectly willing to let the jungle take the law into its own hands. So why have laws, if the are to be just disregarded whenever it is convenient? Police Commissioner Taro should still be trying to protect Barney so he can take him down legitimately. Maybe he should go back to book learnin’ until he learns him some ethics.

Taro gets a call that someone spotted the succarat and now something got killed, but not a human at this time. Whatever it was, the screen doesn’t show. Who ya gonna call? Succarat Busters! Sadly, that franchise doesn’t exist…yet! Oh, the succarat is red, in case you were wondering, so I guess it should be Bride of the Orang Utan.

Blah blah, more papers for the couple to sign, make with the Gorilla Briding! Barney wanders into the jungle again and returns days later ranting about how he loves the jungle and isn’t selling the plantation. Oh, he was selling the plantation to the fat guy. Thanks for letting us know, movie! I blame all my not paying attention to the plot on your failure to be interesting! Dina is upset, because now she can’t see the world and live life and party.

The plantation workers come to get pay, they are all going to move out of town. One of them is Asia, just to add to the further ethnic confusion going on here. They see dried blood on Barney’s hand, which is odd as there isnt anything on his hand! Plantation workers! They’re crazy!

Rikk and the bots leave the theater for a sketch involving real movie poster taglines that is set up very similar to a Letterman of O’Brien bit. Also one joke about Brokeback Mountain is slightly homophobic. This is my only real complaint with the host segments, which otherwise are handled better than I thought they would be. Zombie signal!

Dr. Viet tells Dina they think Barney killed Klaas, and that he is in love with her. Is Dina the only woman in this country who isn’t old? That can’t be right, as Barney was plowing someone’s daughter and that other girl servant. And there was some ignorant girl at the rubber plantation mixer party. Maybe Dr. Viet should not fall in love with a lady who first married someone three times her age and then married a gorilla. That’s only sensible.

I finally heard the name of the spooky plant, it is the peyde guam plant. That’s probably spelled wrong, but the plant is probably made up, so who cares? What are you, a Bride of the Gorilla perfectionist?

Barney runs to the jungle again after trying to get Dina to leave, but she’s too in love with him. What is odd is that her and Barney have absolutely no chemistry what so ever. All Barney does is yell and complain and have a horrible temper, and she somehow loves him despite all of this, like one of the women on Cops that is always saying they can’t leave their man. I take all I said back, this film has a relationship that is more real than they realize!

Dr. Viet and Taro drop by, with a rifle. Because, let’s just bring big guns when we make our social calls! They wander around the jungle after finding the poison peyde guam plant, while Dina still wandering around the jungle and POV shots of Barney as a gorilla (but we only see gorilla hands) are following her like a creepy stalker or something. Bride of the Stalker Gorilla!

We see a shot of the gorilla carrying unconscious Dina, then Taro and Dr. Viet fire their guns repeatedly into the jungle. We see they scored hits…Dina is dead, and Barney dies right afterwards, getting one last look at himself in the water’s reflection: he sees a gorilla face, but he is normal. Because this whole sequence was just him getting high on the plant’s poison, and he was never really a gorilla. Except, what did the native worker guys see? Way to forget a plot point, movie! And good job killing the chick you were in love with, Dr. Viet! A metaphor for the war that hadn’t even happened yet. And that was the end of the Bride of the Gorilla. And the Gorilla. Also the movie.

Topsy then uses the magic plant to try to turn Rikk into a gorilla. You see, monkey suits, it’s funny! Laugh, or I’ll sick the zombies on you! Dr, Blackwood calls just in time to see Rikk get gorillafied.

That’s the end of Incognito Cinema Warriors XP Episode 101! And yes, they got stingers! WHOOOOO!!!

so, for a fan film, this is exceptionally well done. I know there are a few MST3K fan film groups out there, including some that do movies that aren’t public domain and they don’t have the rights to. But ICWXP manages to get listed on the RiffTrax.com pages and you can buy/download episodes there, along with DVDs off their site. Sadly, they only have a few episodes done at this time, but hopefully they will make more soon. Or I’ll sick the zombies on them! So buy their crap so they get rich and make more stuff.

iRiffs:
Episode 2 – Lady Frankenstein
Episode 3 – Bloody Pit of Horror
Ghost Rider short
DVDs:
Episode 3 – Bloody Pit of Horror

Disclaimer – I have never met these dudes, don’t get any money for this, and I totally am not an evil scientist trapping people in my own movie theater and forcing them to watch terrible films. Yet…

Bride of the Gorilla Rated 2/10 (Jilted lover, wall symbol)

Incognito Cinema Warriors XP – Episode 1 Rated 7/10 (Not in this episode, cartoon time, plant time, zombie signal, time for spells, Wasp Women are Stingy, ain’t no wolf like and agony wolf)

Please give feedback in our forums!

Email us and tell us how much we suck!