User Reviews

Konga is set in London where Dr. Charles Decker (Michael Gough) has returned after his plane crashed in Uganda & was missing presumed dead there for over a year, during that year Decker was living with native tribes in the jungle & learning about new species of plants & the scientific & medical possibilities they held. Bring back a serum that local tribes developed & a Chimpanzee named Konga he intends to carry out experiments into the link between animal & plant life, injecting Konga with the serum the Chimp grow's to human size in a matter of minutes & Decker concludes his experiments are a success although much more work still needs to be done with help of his assistant Margaret (Margot Johns). Not everyone agrees with Decker's revolutionary experiments & he uses Konga to kill all those oppose him or threaten his work. Margaret becomes aware that she is also to be killed by Konga after she discovers too much & tries to use Konga herself to kill Decker first but the giant Ape breaks free & rampages through London...

This British & American co-production was directed by John Lemont & is considered a real Turkey amongst film fans & to be fair Konga is bad but I had a good time watching it & thought it was reasonably entertaining in it's silliness, the whole film seems to have been made as a King Kong (1933) rip-off with a giant Ape that runs amok in a world famous city & is killed by a famous landmark in said city & taken as just a silly & cheap monster film there's some fun to be had here. The script is far too talky & Konga himself is more of a subplot until the last fifteen minutes when he that silly woman Margaret injects loads of growth serum into his arm & he grow's taller than Big Ben, the majority of the film focuses on Dr. Decker & his vague experiments (are they about increasing size or mind control or about changing physical form?) as well as he lecherous longings for his pretty young blonde student Sandra, his possessive & quite frankly dim secretary Margaret also causes him problems as do various other people whom he has to kill off as the script tries to throw in a few murders & an opportunity for the tatty Konga Ape suit to be seen. Don't expect Konga to ask any serious scientific questions as the whole thing is just absurd, what I want to know is why Konga changes from a Chimpanzee to an Ape when he grow's. At 90 minutes long Konga does drag a little in places & it has horribly dated from the dumb cop's to the way the teens talk & act to the daft plans that people come up with, but I liked it's dated quaintness & charm as it gives you a few extra things to laugh at whether the filmmakers wanted you to or not. If taken for what it is & watched in the right frame of mind then Konga is good clean totally ridiculous monster filled fun, nothing more nothing less.

The effects are really poor, the Ape suit was apparently hired from George Barrows & it's a really tatty & unconvincing looking thing. It just looks terrible so directed Lemont has to naturally feature it as much as often in bright light & keep his camera on it for as long as possible with it's shifty moving eye's yet otherwise totally motionless face which is the exact opposite of what he should have done, did this look as bad to audiences back in 1961? It must have. The giant carnivorous plants look like polystyrene & the end shot when one has Sandra's arm in it's trap you can clearly see the green paint flaking off it as she struggles, it really is that cheap. Some of the models look OK but the BIg Ben model at the end is wasted as Konga just stands next to it & nothing else, ion fact his entire rampage through London is nothing more than him walking down a street holding Decker. Not particularly violent & featuring no gore Konga would make good family viewing.

With a supposed budget of about $500,000 I suspect that it was even less than that. Filmed in London here in England. The acting isn't great, in fact apart from Michael Gough's larger than life villain whose motivations & plans are all over the place it's quite poor.

Konga is good fun if your in the right mood & your a fan of silly giant monster films, if not then I would advise you stay well away from this as you will probably hate it. I liked it, Konga is not a good film at all but it has a certain charm that I enjoyed. As a cheap King Kong rip-off it it's bad but good.

The plot and special effects for this film are terrible--especially the special effects. However, despite being a completely terrible film, it isn't total garbage. Michael Gough's completely one-note and over the top performance actually makes the entire thing worth seeing, as this terrible over-acting is the only way they could have made this thing work at all.

The film begins with Gough being discovered in the jingle a year after he was assumed to have died in a plane crash. He's in fine shape and excited about carrying on with botanical experiments based on what he learned while staying with Ugandans until his rescuers arrived. Apparently, a local witch doctor taught him a lot of cool things about genetic manipulation and mind control (little-known fact--most of the world's top geneticists are in fact witch doctors, with three recent Nobel Prize winners being witch doctors).

It seems his research has to do with, get this, infusing plant DNA into animals in order to make them grow to huge proportions in a matter of minutes! My favorite experiment is one where he gave a cute little chimpanzee injections and it grew into a gorilla!! How the miracle drug caused the animal to not only grow but change species is beyond me!! And, for these scenes, there was of course the obligatory man in a gorilla suit!

You'll love Michael Gough's performance as the doctor, as he manages to wonderfully create as mad a scientist as you can find on film. With such stock phrases like "you fools!" and "I'll show them!!", he's perfect for the part. And, like any self-respecting mad scientist, he's not above using his giant chimp/gorilla to settle some grudges. In fact, having the beast kill is sort of like eating potato chips--you can't stop with only one!

By the end of the film, not only are several people dead, but Gough's jealous mistress decides to give the animal a HUGE injection--resulting in a 60 foot high creature. However, how big the animal is seems to change in each scene (the scale was NOT well established or maintained)! And eventually, when the "chorilla" takes Gough prisoner and while he's struggling in vain in the clutches of the animal, what does he repeatedly yell? Yep, "you fool, you fool"! The final scenes show the chorilla (with Gough) roaming the streets of London. Oddly, the beast does NOT go on a rampage but rather ambles about without causing any particular harm. In fact, much of the time he just stands there doing absolutely nothing! This made it easy for the military to attack it and in a less than thrilling finale, you see tracer bullets and bazooka shells consistently missing the creature--even though the folks are only about ten yards away!! These are supposedly trained soldiers and he's the size of a house...and yet they keep missing! It's actually pretty funny.

Overall, the costumes and special effects are truly dreadful. The story is quite silly (but watchable in a cheesy sort of way) and Michael Gough does pretty much the same job acting as he did in most films he made during the 1960s and early 70s--an angry and superior sort of fella from start to finish. For bad movie fans who like laughing at inept films, this is a movie just for them. For anyone else, forget it--you can't help but do better picking another film.

.but with a much smaller budget. A mad scientist grows a giant ape in his laboratory and uses it to kill off his rivals. The special effects are laughably bad. Veteran British actor Michael Gough chews the scenery worse than the man-eating plants he raises in his hothouse; today he is best known for playing Alfred in several BATMAN movies. Claire Gordon plays the naturally gifted student body he wants to give biology lessons to; she went on to appear in several sexploitation movies, including COMMUTER HUSBANDS, SUBRUBAN WIVES, and SEX FARM.

SPOILER ALERT: The best part of the movie are the aforementioned man-eating plants. When Gough makes a pass at Gordon in the hothouse, there are several large, phallic-looking plants in the background with their stamen hanging out.

Michael Gough seems to have cornered the market on portrayals of nasty, homicidal English snobs in the late Fifties. Between his role of the physically and mentally twisted Bancroft in Horrors of the Black Museum, and his fanatical, lecherous scientist in Konga, the man carved out a career for himself that is pretty well unique. Even his occasional good guy roles like Horror of Dracula's Arthur Holmwood are tinged with that cold blooded quality that made him such a memorable villain. He almost makes me think of a British version of Vincent Price, but without the sly humor.

Konga seems to be trying to be several different movies at once: a science fiction story about a fantastic new discovery, a revenge tale in which a man is bumping off the people he holds a grudge against,a sexy soap opera triangle, and a giant monster on the loose spectacle. From the moment when the evil scientist first hypnotizes the normal sized gorilla to go out and kill people for him, I couldn't stop laughing. Scene after scene follows, of the stoned looking gorilla watching the little hypnotic flashlight, as Gough, with an absolutely straight face, gives his murderous commands. Scotland Yard is baffled by the mysterious killings, though one might imagine a gorilla lurching around in a quiet London neighborhood might attract a bit more attention.

This movie should be seen at least once. You owe it to yourself to have a good laugh at one of the worst movies ever made. Ed Wood would have been envious.

Complete review of a deathless masterpiece......

Good old Michael Gough, first seen carrying a chimp unhindered through customs, he soon departs for his house, in which every room seems to be painted green. Gough then accidentally smashes his growth serum on the floor of his lab, proceding to shoot his cat when he licks it up. "We can't have a cat the size of a leopard roaming around London!" After a few injections the tiny chimp Konga turns into a bloke in a gorilla suit, aided by a "wavy line" screen effect, and is promptly hypnotised by The Goughster, looking extremely stoned when the process is finished. "Nobody in the world suspects how close we are!"

Gough then has Konga off the Dean of his college, probably for being a baldy annoyance. His ultimate goal is to "Change the shape of human beings",and to this aim he has a greenhouse full of rubber carnivorous plants. Some bloke with a tea towel on his head turns up as a rival to Gough's scientific theories, and Konga kills him on his master's orders, too. The Great Gough also takes his students on field trips to study mosses and ferns, which is extremely interesting. Cue a blink and you'll miss it jazz radio sequence in the back of the van with the students, who all look about 35. Of course it being Britain it p**ses down.

Despite offering to marry his secretary, who is fully aware he's a murderer, Gough also puts the moves on one of his students; "He's old enough to be your father!" His love rival, a truly terrible actor in a natty blue pullover chins The Goughmeister, which is probably a bad idea when he's got a gorilla for a bessie mate. "You'll probably have me expelled for this." Nah, not when gooney-eyed Konga can unconvincingly choke you as you're trying to start your Vespa! "Here, Konga!"

Of course the law is useless as usual. The big revelation is when we see Gough having his breakfast in a purple-painted kitchen - it's not all green! "It's shocking" says his sec/lover, presumably referring to the multiple murders rather than the decor, although I could be wrong. "Destroy Konga? But why?" Er, he's a homicidal gorilla, responsible for 3 killings luv.

70 mins gone. Still no giant Konga in sight. Gough decides to ditch his secretary for the 30 year old teenage student he's got the hots for. The sec rebels, sticking about 45 pints of serum into Konga. And at last the Gough starts overacting. Konga chucks a plastic doll that looks nothing like the woman around and then bursts out of the house, picking up the Gough on the way - Yaaaay! The local Trumpton fire bobbies arrive about 15 seconds later. Konga goes on a non-rampage, carrying an Action Man. "There's a huge monster gorilla thats constantly growing loose in the streets" says the inspector. A1 for observation, then. Konga, still looking stoned, refuses to lower the Gough. Lots of extras run into the camera, desperately trying to get away. Shock horror, Konga makes for Big Ben, the only part of the UK most Americans recognise.....

Having spent 10 minutes going "Urgh, arrgh," while stuck in Konga's grasp, Gough struggles to no avail. The army, deploying outside the "Famous for Shoes" store, arrive in what looks like 2 diddymen trucks and promptly open fire, missing completely from a distance of about 10 yards. Poor Gough gets chucked at them. Konga dies, even though every tracer bullet has gone wide of the mark, falls over next to Gough, and reverts back to chimp size, arrrh! The final shot has Gough lying next to his tragic creation. What a classic! 4 stars for the sheer cheek of the thing!

After being lost in the wilds of Uganda for a year and a half, insane botany professor Michael Gough returns to London and creates a serum that allows his pet chimp Konga to grow to astronomical sizes. The chimp, who somehow grows and becomes a gorilla(!), then does Gough's evil bidding, killing off his enemies and any potential threats to his scientific glory. A pretty dumb film directed by John Lemont and featuring a typically high strung performance by Gough. The special effects are not very special and Lemont wisely films most of Konga's rampaging in such darkness, you really can't see much. It's all a dull hybrid of HG Wells, Robert Louis Stevenson and KING KONG. The supporting cast includes Margo Johns as Gough's assistant/lover, Claire Gordon as a nubile botany student and pop singer Jess Conrad plays "Bob." Steven Berkoff is listed in the credits as one of Gough's student. The shrill music is by Gerard Schurmann.

"Konga" is a badly written, acted and directed piece of poverty row exploitation British-style,but you'd have to be utterly cold hearted not to get a lot of fun out of it. The final scenes as the giant ape lays waste to the Merton Park area of West London had audiences in hysterics (I saw it on it's original release, double-billed with "The Hellfire Club"). Come on now, any movie with early sixties Brit. Pop star Jess Conrad cast in a straight dramatic part has to be worth a look.

Composer Gerald Schurmann's music under the opening credits promise something a lot more substantial, though; it's a great,dark orchestral score worthy of a much better picture. Schurmann might have been the British Bernard Herrman, but his immense talents rarely earned him a picture worthy of them. Still, that's British Movies for you.

It is a fun cheesy movie, it has a great cast and some okay effects. But my biggest complaint is that Konga starts out as a Chimp but the plant extract formula turns little Konga into a Gorilla and that is not possible. An Chimp is a Chimp and a Gorilla is a Gorilla. They are two different species. I mean what would have really happened if he didn't shoot the cat that drinks the spilled formula, he would have turned into a lion? The story implies that Konga just got larger which means he should have stilled looked like a chimp. But the story is a unique twist on the giant ape story, the cast does a bang up job. It is a classic and I think if you are a fan of the giant ape genre, then you will enjoy this. 7 STARS.

KONGA begs to be compared with KING KONG. Konga, according to AIP, is more terrifying than King Kong! That may be so, if the average moviegoer is more terrified by paunchy guys in gorilla suits than by realistic miniatures (i.e. Kong). But seriously, KONGA is not terrifying. Konga himself, the "monster," is a confused, overgrown chimp who follows a mad doctor's orders until the film's climax, when Konga quadruples in size, breaks out of his cage (and out of his house, via the front wall) and starts throwing people around like they're nothing more than Ken & Barbie dolls. He kills the mad doctor and the doctor's assistant, then basically gives himself up to the British police, who call in the armed forces and gun the gorilla down. Big Ben stands behind Konga during this scene, to indicate his (Konga's) enormous size. The "love theme" from KONGA plays while the giant collapses and reverts, in death, to the little chimp he was at the start of the movie, before mad Dr. Decker began experimenting with him. [END SPOILER ALERT]

Michael Gough gives an overdone performance as Decker and, indeed, the story focuses on him nearly always. KONGA can be good fun for people who enjoy watching how mad doctors work through their strange problems. For anyone else, especially for lovers of giant gorilla movies, KONGA is an inept, tedious, insulting, illogical and under-budgeted chunk of merde. To be avoided, generally, but it is entertaining if viewed with complete detachment.

Although it reputedly cost half a million dollars, "Konga" is little more than a cheapo creature feature with Claire Gordon as a nice little bit of feminine distraction and Michael Gough as the loony manipulator of the two women in his life and, of course, "Konga" himself. Unfortunately, "Konga" is a bit of a letdown. Now all of us, except the producers of this movie, know that a chimp is not a gorilla, nor is a gorilla a chimp. Not recognizing this is bad enough, but the producers of this film don't have a real gorilla on hand anyway. The "gorilla" is obviously a man in a monkey suit - and not a very convincing suit at that. Nevertheless, the actors try to play it cool, but the odds are stacked against them. Nobody could take this movie seriously. But as a comedy, it certainly has its daft moments of - what can I say? Dopey developments? Inept freakishness!

So what can I say about this film. Well I will say it's a well written story and the acting is great. It takes itself very seriously and plays well as a psychotic dramatic thriller.

CHARACTERS - Michael Gough is great in the role of Doctor Decker. You can see allot of his mind playing around. You're really interested in him at first with his ideas and plans. But as the film progresses and obstacles start to bump him around, you start to miss judge him and he ultimately becomes a villain and a complete creep. He's married and hits on his college students. EW! Margret is a great character too and you see her struggles with what she has to deal with. The Rest of the cast, bland, aside from Bob and Sandra. Sandra is very innocent, not taking a hint that Decker is putting the moves on her. Kind of dumb. Bob, though bland has his struggles and is not dumb. He sees what Decker is up to and does what a boyfriend would do, get jealous AND COMPLETELY OBSESSIVE. There's a scene where he confronts Decker and he goes all Gollum on him.

KONGA - Even though the film is good in its characters and plot, what kills it is Konga itself. First of all, the fact that he becomes a giant Kong figure at the end, though a cool idea, does become out of place. 2nd and most of all, the suit. It's very standard issue for the time and looks awful, but I have seen worse. It looks nothing like a gorilla nor a chimp from the neck down. Plus the animatronic head is really creepy at times, like something out of chuck e cheese. Then there is the actor in the suit, he doesn't act for noting. In his rampage the actor just walks extremely lazy, it's like he doesn't care. Then in close up its like they dragged him off the street, put the suit on him and he looks left and right like "What is going on?" This is what killed the movie for me.

EFFECTS - The effects aren't really that good either. As I said, the suit is bad, but it's also other effects as well, especially with green screen and composting. You can tell that they filmed scenes on green screen and sometimes they don't even bother putting in the background. Like these shots, they couldn't afford a giant hand, but instead wrap the ape suit around the actors. It's even obvious that they could not afford a green screen, but instead, paint a bright green brick wall and use it as a green screen. This is probably why the composting shots look really bad.

TRIVIA - Apparently, C-Movie Exploitation film producer Herman Cohen had long admired the original King Kong he thought of the idea of a remake shot in color would bring big bucks. But RKO refused a remake so Cohen paid $25,000 for the rights to the name of Kong for exploitation purposes as long as he re framed from the source material. Also the special effects for the film that was one of the first giant monster movies shot in color took 18 months to complete. But who cares, the effects sucked.

VERDICT - To sum it up, it is a B-Movie that takes itself way too seriously, maybe too well that were invested in the characters in my opinion. But then the effects come in a kill it. So I will say it's a watch once movie.

The tag-line listed on IMDb for Konga reads – "Not since "King Kong"...has the screen exploded with such mighty fury and spectacle!" Here are a few ideas for tag-lines that would seem to me to be more appropriate (and truthful).

"SEE a chimpanzee magically transform into a man in a bad gorilla suit in mere seconds!"

"WATCH as Michael Gough chews more scenery than a Weed-Eater!"

"HEAR more pseudo-science babble than any one movie has a right to!"

"WATCH a brilliant professor throw his career away on one of the homeliest excuses for a college co-ed ever put on film!"

"SEE Barbie dolls thrown across the screen by the man in the bad gorilla suit!"

"WATCH the dullest movie ever made about a giant ape!"

After poring over a still of this film's theatrical poster in my father's scrapbook, I managed to catch up with it in the late 1990s via a screening on the now-defunct UK TV channel "Bravo". I remember finding it silly then and, if anything, it proved even sillier now but, being able to appreciate the campy qualities in Michael Gough's histrionic central performance, it was a worthwhile revisit after all.

The film starts immediately with a cheap but effective airplane crash and then cuts to a year later with Gough's sudden return to London with a small chimp in tow; at his arrival at the airport he is met by a delegation (stretching to just 3 reporters!) and already he starts showing signs of a 'not- suffering-fools-gladly' attitude towards those scoffing at his outrageous theory of plants with human characteristics that can accelerate growth! His long-suffering secretary (Margo Johns), having lovingly nurtured the conventional plants in his glass-house, is shocked to see him ruthlessly dispose of them to make room for the new additions; the imported plants in his glasshouse (having fully matured inside of a week) have a surprisingly overt (but unintentionally funny) phallic shape – perhaps an addition of gay producer Herman Cohen?

Soon he is extracting the growth fluid from these plants and injecting them into his chimp (when a pet cat unwittingly sips the accidentally-spilt formula, Gough loses it and, to his assistant's amazement, shoots the fatally curious feline on the spot!) and, before you can say "Konga", it is turned into a fully mature ape. Transported around town inside his black van, it is used to eliminate those people who stand in the way of his reaching the goals he had set for himself in life: the patronizing college Dean, a fellow Indian scientist working on similar lines (George Pastell of Hammer's THE MUMMY fame) and one of his pupils (the boyfriend of a studious female Gough drools over and vice versa!), though the latter only after he gets one hell of a beating from him!

Though the film was obviously modeled on 1933's KING KONG (one, in fact, wonders why nobody sued given the blatant rip-off of the title and theme!), the script borrows from several other genre classics: 1932's MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE (via its trained or, in this case, hypnotized[!] ape), 1935's BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN (a 'rival' scientist offering the protagonist to join forces – though, perhaps owing more to budgetary constraints than anything else, the latter's creations are never shown!) and THE RAVEN (in the doctor's obsessive and unnatural desire for a much younger girl) and, of a more recent vintage, 1960's THE LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS (the flesh-eating plants).

The film is reasonably solid until the last quarter of an hour when it unfortunately falls to pieces: incidentally, here we get perhaps one of cinema's most credibility-stretching moments with Gough seemingly so lost in pawing the heroine in the greenhouse that he is totally oblivious to Konga's extreme growth next door – literally coming through the roof and setting his house ablaze – but the fire engines and civil authorities from God knows how far away do hear the ruckus and come dashing onto the scene! Less outrageously, Johns conditions the ape to turn on its master (for having been unceremoniously jilted) without her ever having seen Gough perform the trick to begin with! Besides, the victims in the ape's hands are obvious dummies (Gough himself is thrown at the oncoming assailants); the latter, too, continually orders Konga to let him down and, when this fails, cries for help to the gathering crowd of panicking onlookers below!! When the military arrives and starts shooting at the ape, nobody seems to have any consideration for the human life in its grasp – and, with the sheer amount of ammunition fired via shotguns and bazookas (many of which are seen missing their target and a bomb even hits Big Ben without causing any damage), they would have mowed down a whole army of super-size gorillas!

For the record, not too long ago I watched another film by the little-known John Lemont, namely THE FRIGHTENED CITY (1961), a minor British noir which had featured a pre-Bond Sean Connery. More to the point, when still a kid, I had caught the notoriously campy A*P*E (which I am actually more familiar with under the moniker SUPER KONG) that emanated from Japan in the wake of the 1976 KING KONG remake – I sure would like to re-acquaint myself with that one now...

**May Contain Spoilers**

The British don't make many turkeys but when they do grind one out it's a beaut. The most interesting thing about this one is watching good actors trying to make something presentable out of a ridiculous script full of schizophrenic, unbelievable characters. Michael Gough heads the cast as a deranged scientist with a new growth serum and a pet chimpanzee to test it on. As if you couldn't guess, he runs into problems with the scientific establishment, then uses his formula to turn the cute little chimp into a big stupid-looking gorilla that's sent out to murder his enemies. Live-in assistant Margo Johns gets real mad when Gough pays too much attention to Claire Gordon, a young student with big blonde hair and an even bigger rack. Her rational solution is to turn Konga into a giant who goes on one of the most lackluster, poorly-staged monster rampages ever. In one scene, fugitives are more amazed than terrified and actually stop to gawk. Police superintendent Jack Watson tries to register horror as the guy in the ape suit flings a Michael Gough doll to the ground. One character is attacked by Gough's carnivorous plants in a scene that makes Andy Milligan's BLOOD look like THE DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS. I hope Ray Harryhausen never saw this; the not-so-special effects would have made him gag. After a bunch of crazy Brits made this howler it needed a U.S. distributor to pick it up and amaze audiences here; American International, of course, was happy to oblige. To drive yourself completely ape-s**t, watch this and THE MIGHTY GORGA as a double feature and try to figure out which is worse.