Getting wind of dangerous experiments, animal-rights activists team up with an insider to raid a facility owned by a large corporation conducting work on primates, only to discover the company's dark and terrible secret has instead unleashed a massive killer gorilla loose on them.

This was a pretty solid and enjoyable effort. One of the more likable elements is the cheesy and workable setup that gives this a great reason to have the group together and explore the treacherous facility. Getting just a bare hint of the company's intentions at the facility working on primates to tap into their enhanced strength and dexterity genes to aid in mankind's next evolutionary step, their quest to expose what's going on for the sake of the animals in captivity offers a highly enjoyable setup that's handled well enough with their quest to venture inside and stop them. Realizing what's happening at the facility with their experiments going further beyond what was expected and finding the truth behind what's happening, generates a lot of fun with the reveals and twists going on that come into play here. That setup provides a lot of fun creature action as a result of it going through the facility taking out whatever it can get its hands on. The initial sequence of it attacking the group and ripping the one friend to pieces in front of them offers a strong starting point to this with the resulting chaos and confusion leading to them being captured later on after escaping, while later scenes of the ape running wild taking out the security force or the scientists in charge feature some solid bloodsoaked kills as it also tears them apart. While offering more bloodshed than normal, these are more done in service of setting up the big sequence at the end with the transformation taking place as the one victim injected with chemicals during the film is turned into a deformed monstrosity to pay off that storyline quite nicely while also giving this it's positive moments. There are some minor issues holding this one back. The main factor here is the jumbled and chaotic order of events that tends to bring about some rather bizarre antics here. The group is captured and held by the security team near the start of the film and then we get an info dump about what's going on before the creature arrives to take the security out. This leaves the film without much in the way of villains for the vast majority of the running time with the creature's backstory invoking plenty of sympathy and the heavy forces group wiped out halfway through which causes a flat and underwhelming finale. As well, there's also the obvious CGI used for the creature which features an endless array of tactics that will be familiar to anyone who watches these kinds of films that isn't as painful as the other detriment that rightfully holds it down.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Violence and Graphic Language.

The production opens with a breech and a large ape killing a man at a secret facility. With Simon (Arthur Boan) as an inside man a group of activist plan on entering the secret facility and take pictures of the caged animal experiments. We know they are doing some type of genetics test in order to make man have the extra senses and strength of out fellow simians. Getting there at night they sneak around until they discover a locked gate near a cave entrance. They then find the giant CG ape and now the party being one short. They managed to escape too a nearby cabin and call on a two-way radio for help as one person is injured. Help arrives as they are taken prisoner.

The script is typical for modern horror. We have an event that will tie in later. We introduce the final person. We introduce the rest of the group. They travel and get into a situation they have no cell phone. Initial scene now ties in as the party is reduced one by one down to the final person. Weak characters.

Guide: F-word. No sex or nudity.

A group of activists breaks into a corporate facility to put an end to animal testing but little did they know that there's literally a Kong-like ape being held inside and once loose, he won't care who gets in his way and who has to die for him to be free.

Directed by Jack Ayers, written by Max Brooks - yes, the guy who wrote World War Z - and produced by Scott Jeffrey and Rebecca Matthews, who have brought so many made for streaming horror films our way was of late, The Rise of the Beast has a CGI monster that doesn't always appear to be in the same physical space as the actors he's menacing, but I think this year is the year I get past stuff like that and just say, "Well, we're never going back to rubber suits or miniatures."

It's a movie smart enough to name its evil company the Darrow Corporation and have a Dr. Kafka be in charge, yet still dumb enough to have people running and screaming from a maddened monkey. There are times this wants to be a satire, other times it's super serious and it does in all in under 80 minutes, which is some kind of small victory.