7 Movies That Are Basically Planet Of The Apes Ripoffs

Like any major film franchise, the Planet of the Apes movies have had their fair share of copycats, with several notable ripoffs coming and going over the years. The Planet of the Apes series began with Pierre Boulle’s science fiction novel of the same name that was released in 1963, with the first famous film adaptation starring Charlton Heston coming out five years later. Throughout its long history, the Planet of the Apes movies have accumulated a number of blatant rip-offs of laughable quality.

What’s interesting to note is the fact that the series has waxed and waned over the years as each new Planet of the Apes cinematic timeline debuted. From the original 70s sequels to the disastrous Tim Burton remake to the modern prequel series, each new era of Planet of the Apes movies seems to have inspired its own wave of knock-offs looking to cash in on the franchise’s name. Even today, the series remains incredibly popular, meaning that the list of shameless copycat films has the potential to grow even further.

Some of the Planet of the Apes ripoffs simply seek to steal the marquee value of the franchise with similar enough titles, perhaps hoping to willfully confuse potential movie renters. Others simply use an obvious parody of the setting as background dressing for other ends, from serialized storytelling to softcore pornography. Either way, the series has had a fascinating history of ill-fated imitation films that all seem to share one defining characteristic — A painfully small budget compared to the blockbusters they evoke.

7 The Bungler On The Plateau Of The Apes

1976

The parody film is a lost art, with films like Meet the Spartans, Vampires Suck, or the Scary Movie franchise falling by the wayside in recent years. But this lost art form is not strictly relegated to the mid to late 2000s by any means, with parody movies having been around for a long, long time. While films like Spaceballs or Young Frankenstien might be better examples of parody movies from a bygone era, the Brazilian film O Trapalhão no Planalto dos Macacos provides a hilarious take on the storied sci-fi series.

With its title roughly translating to The Bungler on the Plateau of the Apes, the movie more colloquially known in English-speaking fandoms as Brazilian Planet of the Apes provides a comedic version of the original film’s events. It’s worth noting that the film premiered in the midst of the first continuity’s popularity in the 70s, striking while the iron was hot on pop-culture’s fascination of the Planet of the Apes movies. Its creators also doubled down on the concept with a spoof TV show, Planet of the Men, or Planeta dos Homens in Portuguese.

For what its worth, The Bungler on the Plateau of the Apes might have the highest production value of any obvious Planet of the Apes ripoff, with surprisingly decent-looking simian costumes for the most important ape characters. Being an obvious parody, the film makes no efforts to hide its influence, though the bizarre jokes are displaced by both time and culture for those who enjoyed the original. Other popular movies of the era also get their licks, with references to Jaws also making it into the movie.

6 Mistress Of The Apes

1979

Not every Planet of the Apes ripoff maintained the original series’ same science fiction angle, and projects like Mistress of the Apes end up taking heavy influence from the likes of Tarzan, as well. Still, the similarities between Mistress of the Apes‘ society of humanoid monkeys and the classic post-human ape society can’t be denied, firmly placing the film as an obvious imitation. The movie is directed by the exploitation filmmaker Larry Buchanan, infamous for low-budget bombs like Mars Needs Women.

Mistress of the Apes is par for the course for Buchanan’s work, relying on shock value, nudity, and awkward sexual circumstances to draw what meager viewership it can. The story revolves around a beautiful anthropologist being trapped in the jungle alongside a society of “Near Men” ape people. Oddly enough, the film does make some attempts at philosophical statements and thematic elements worthy of its namesake, failing hilariously as a so-bad-it’s-good ironic masterpiece.

5 Empire Of The Apes

2013

Not every jaw-droppingly obvious forgery of a Planet of the Apes film came in the wake of the 70s sequels, back when intellectual property wasn’t as fiercely protected. The Planet of the Apes prequel trilogy, kicked off by Rise of the Planet of the Apes, reignited interest in the franchise, perhaps even surpassing the original run of films. With it came a whole new slew of imitators, including 2013’s Empire of the Apes, shamelessly released two years after Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

Despite being filmed in the 2010s, Empire of the Apes somehow looks cheaper than most of the 70s ripoffs, with a paper-thin budget barely able to provide its public park filming locations, underbaked CGI, and party store ape costumes. The movie follows a trio of scantily-clad female prison inmates who manage to escape in a high-tech rocket ship, only to crash-land on a planet ruled by, of course, intelligent apes. With painfully bad line reads from the main actresses and nauseating editing choices, Empire of the Apes is an overly-ambitious monument of failure.

4 Revenge From Planet Ape

1971

Despite its misleading title, Revenge from Planet Ape was originally quite a unique film with its own vision. Once upon a time, Revenge from Planet Ape was actually Tombs of the Blind Dead, a Spanish-language horror film about the re-emergence of ancient zombified Templar knights who terrorize their victims, hunting by sound alone due to their eyeballs rotting away. The film was widely hailed as Spain’s answer to Night of the Living Dead, by all means a successful horror film of the early 70s.

It wasn’t until U.S. distributors decided to butcher the film’s English-release edit into being a Planet of the Apes ripoff that the film had any connection to the franchise whatsoever. A hastily-added opening sequence loosely connected the film with Planet of the Apes while asserting that the undead knights of the film were actually zombified apes, owing to the fact that their makeup was slightly similar to John Chambers’ ape makeup. Thus, Revenge from Planet Ape mutilated a perfectly good horror movie into a bawdy attempt to cash in on the success of another film.

3 Playmate Of The Apes

2002

The Tim Burton Planet of the Apes remake is largely considered the weakest of the films to use the hallowed names of the science fiction series, with Burton’s unique directorial style simply being ill-suited to the world of Planet of the Apes. But as much as Tim Burton’s Planet of the Apes was hated, the new take on the old classic was still noteworthy enough to inspire its own round of shameless copycats. Enter Playmate of the Apes, a film that took the unnerving sexual undertones of Burton’s film to the next level.

Essentially, Playmate of the Apes is an erotic fan-fiction of the Tim Burton Planet of the Apes movie. Like Empire of the Apes, the film revolves around three promiscuous female astronauts who crash-land on a planet ruled by hyperintelligent apes, who soon grow wild with lust over the new human interlopers. While the plot might be a thin excuse to showcase hot-and-heavy ape-suit action, the highlight of the film is the hilariously creative names of its characters. Standouts include the wild woman Uvula, Dr. Cornholeous, and Lieutenant Fornication.

2 Planet Of The Erotic Ape

2002

If there was a unique species of undiscovered ape for every erotic parody of Planet of the Apes that released in 2002 in the wake of Tim Burton’s remake, there’d be two new entries in hominid taxonomy, which isn’t a lot, but is still arguably far too many. Planet of the Erotic Ape was yet another sex-crazed ripoff of Planet of the Apes shot on a miniscule budget, releasing straight to video alongside Playmate of the Apes.Despite the more overtly sexual name,Planet of the Erotic Ape actually tries harder to offer more than scantily-clad human women to ogle.

For what it’s worth, the plot of Planet of the Erotic Ape is far more creative. This time around, a human TV technician somehow manages to invent a device that teleports him across the cosmos to a whole new world that, of course, is overrun with sentient apes. The science fiction society here is a bit original at least, presenting a matriarchal culture in which human women have banished all men to the ominously-named “Forbidden Zone”, taking male humanoid apes as their lovers instead.

The ape costumes in Planet of the Erotic Apemight be the most endearingly shoddy of any major Planet of the Apes ripoff. The dead, unblinking eyes of their masks gaze onward blankly as they initiate intimacy with their bikini-clad human lovers, making for a feverish, but undeniably comedic visual. The film’s intentional comedy falls completely flat, resulting in perhaps one of the most detestable films to ever weaponize the name of the Planet of the Apes franchise.

1 Time Of The Apes

1987

The United States wasn’t the only nation in which Planet of the Apes was successful, with the film being wildly popular in Japan. Japanese TV producers wasted no time in crafting their own version of the film, releasing Saru no Gondan, or Army of the Apes. Here, a human scientist and her children are transported to a futuristic society of apes by mistake due to entering cryogenic stasis for hundreds of years. The series depicted a highly-advanced ape society closer to Boulle’s original novel than any film.

Unfortunately, the only time this series was released in the West was as a hastily-edited 90-minute film titled Time of the Apes, which became infamous for its appearance on Mystery Science Theater 3000. The widely-disparaged U.S. edit of the series left out several key episodes thanks to the meddling of TV producer Sandy Frank. While this version of Planet of the Apes had clear potential, like Revenge from Planet Ape, its quality was soiled by the American edit.