Konga - Erbe von King Kong

Konga scared the hell out of me when I saw it on TV at age eight! I had nightmares for several weeks... I've seen Konga since then as an adult and Michael Gough's over-the-top performance makes the film. Plus there's a very attractive English "blonde in distress" who comes to a gruesome end. An "8."

Even though the story is fairly interesting, I can't help but look at this film as a cheap rip off of the classic King Kong. Michael Gough does a decent job playing the crazed Doctor Decker who wants to eliminate everyone who he feels has wronged him. He also is obsessed with one of his young, voluptuous students. His obsessions lead him to the breaking point and this helps to make this a fairly interesting story. Too bad it is undone by the horrible effects, especially the old "man in the cheap gorilla suit" gimmick. I guess the budget didn't allow for decent effects like stop motion animation. However, despite cheapness of it, this film will always remain a guilty pleasure of mine.

Konga is a film about a giant gorilla. It was obviously trying to emulate an earlier film by the name of King Kong but the two films are so different.

Michael Gough plays a mad scientist who gives Konga a growth serum. He gets Konga to do his bidding throughout the film but things spiral out of control eventually.

The film is totally crazy and it's fun seeing the actors so straight faced. Michael Gough as Doctor Decker is so obviously a nutter but no-one (even the police who question him) seems to notice much. Eventually, Konga becomes uncontrollable and goes on a rampage. So what does London do? Does it call in fighter jets? No. It calls in the local police and a few dozen soldiers. If it was up to me I'd clear the city and send the fighter jets in.

The film is an absolute lesson in buffoonry. It's also not very scientifically accurate. Now I'm no scientist but I have learned a bit in my long life. Michael Gough brings a CHIMPANZEE from the jungle and injects him with growth serum but instead of the CHIMPANZEE becoming a bigger CHIMPANZEE, he actually becomes a GORILLA. So for all his bravado, Doctor Decker didn't realise that his serum actually caused the chimp to become a different animal entirely.

But, that's what I like about films like this. Don't you just love a film that is scientifically inaccurate and crazy. Check it out.

I very much enjoyed Konga when I first saw it in a theatre at about the age of nine, and surprisingly enjoyed it almost as much on television. The plot is the standard issue mad scientist who comes up with a growth serum that makes a creature large which then goes on a rampage formula, set in England this time. The creature here is an ape who just happens to be called Konga (hint..hint), which gives one a sense of the degree of subtlety in the film.

If one can call scenery chewing magisterial I think it's fair to say that Michael Gough, as the mad scientist in this one, does it with an authority worthy of at the very least a knighthood, if not a lordship. The special effects are, alas, dreadful even for a modestly budgeted film such as this, but no matter. Gough is the whole show, and his performance is of such profligacy as to bring a round of applause from Messrs. Zucco and Atwill, were they still with us.

Utterly ludicrous movie in all departments,but if you like Edward D wood Jnr then you will enjoy this.One of the funniest lines delivered is when guy in charge of the police rings up the police radio room and says (with a straight face)"there's a huge monster gorilla loose in the streets get my car and all available cars ready"