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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.
score 5/10
poolandrews 11 August 2012
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw2657279/ |
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28-2-2021 06:05:06