Search - Konga on DVD

K. K. (GAMER)
Reviewed on 11/7/2023...

Strong start and then it slow burned. Old school cheesy kong special effects!

1 of 1 member(s) found this review helpful.

Part of Kong-mania - it's finally on DVD

joseph Corey | Raleigh, NC United States | 10/09/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This was originally put out on VHS as part of the Midnite Movie series, but in order to cash in on Kong-mania, Sony is putting it out as a solo release.

Dr. Decker comes back from Africa with a secret way of growing plants and animals to huge sizes. He decides to make a chimp huge so that he can take care of his enemies. Konga becomes enormous and attacks London. That's right - giant ape rampages in London.

If you're going to go Big Ape crazy on DVD in the season of the Kong, this is essential for your collection."

"What you have done will startle the world!"

cookieman108 | Inside the jar... | 01/15/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"In the last of the successful co-productions between American International Pictures (AIP) and producer Herman Cohen comes Konga (1961), which Herman not only co-producer, but also shared in the writing credits. Some of their most famous collaborations included I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957) and I Was a Teenage Frankenstein (1957), neither of which, as I write this, are available as of yet on DVD, but should be (Konga was produced with the working title I Was a Teenage Gorilla)...anyway, directed by John Lemont (The Frightened City), the film stars Michael Gough, who appeared in a number of Cohen's features including Horrors of the Black Museum (1959), Black Zoo (1963), Berserk! (1968), but many movie goers will probably recognize him from some of his later films, including his appearances in the various Batman films as Bruce Wayne's butler Alfred Pennyworth. Also appearing is Margo Johns (This Is My Street), Jess Conrad (The Assassination Bureau), Claire Gordon (Beat Girl), and George Barrows, as Konga...interestingly enough this wasn't George's first (or last) time donning a big, hairy gorilla suit, as he appeared in Robot Monster (1953), as Ro-Man, the alien with a gorilla body and a diver's helmet for a head, along with Gorilla at Large (1954), as Goliath the Gorilla, Black Zoo (1963), as The Ape, and finally in Hillbillys (sic) in a Haunted House (1967), as Anatole the gorilla...

As the film begins we see a small plane crashing into the African jungle, one carrying famed, English botanist Dr. Charles Decker (Gough), thought to have perished in the accident. Well, turns out Decker didn't die, and has spent the last year in Uganda, assisted by friendly natives, making some incredible discoveries (plants with human characteristics and growth properties), ones which he is now bringing back to England, along with a chimpanzee monkey named Konga. Decker returns home, finding his affairs still in order thanks to his assistant/secretary/housekeeper (I wonder if three jobs means three paychecks?) Margaret (Johns), who obviously has a bad case of unrequited love for the professor. Anyway, Decker begins growing his own, meat eating, mutant plants, extracting their juices, which he laces with some obedience seeds, and then injects into the pint-sized Konga causing him to grow from a small ape to a slightly larger ape, and then later into a full size gorilla...more aptly, a full sized man in a gorilla suit, obedient to Decker's commands. Decker has a bit of a falling out with the dean of the school where he teaches, to which he let's the hulking Konga settle the dispute, along with later instructing Konga to deal with a scientific rival, whom Decker, the glory hog, feared would beat him to the punch with his own findings. Also, Decker seems to have taken an unhealthy, lecherous interest in one of his students, Sandra (Gordon), much to the chagrin of her boyfriend Bob (Conrad). Things get out of hand, a scorned woman exacts her revenge (at terrible cost), and soon a 50 foot man in a gorilla suit is terrorizing London, destroying a few miniature sets along the way, leading to mayhem of the wackiest kind as the Brits find themselves up a ginormous monkey creek without a banana paddle...

All in all I thought Konga was a blast...yeah, it tended to get a bit talky at times, but there was enough of the insano to keep me interested. My favorite aspect was seeing Michael Gough, a normally reserved British actor, taking it over the top, an opportunity which he seemed to relish when appearing in numerous Cohen features. His character here was intriguing in that he first appeared the altruistic sort, interested in the advancement of knowledge for the betterment of all mankind, but this was soon polluted with dreams of self aggrandizement along with his wanton desires towards his comely student Sandra, a naïve blondie with a huge rack. He's condescending, misogynistic (a common theme in Cohen's films), manipulative, and completely unsympathetic, perfectly illustrated in the scene where his cat gets into his serum, resulting in a swift dispatch of the feline for fear the affected animal would tip his scientific hand before he was ready. As far as the rest of the cast, they do well enough, but all seem background players against Gough's character. The story itself is fun, albeit containing a number of rather large plot holes including the aspect of the serum turning a chimpanzee monkey into a gorilla, especially since it seemed the only properties it was supposed to have were to embiggen creatures, not transmute them into different species. Another element that stood out was Konga's subservience to Decker...did the serum also allow for the primate to understand the English language? In terms of the special effects, some were quite good, like near the end when the giant Konga was roaming the city streets, while some quite ridiculous, specifically Konga himself. The ape suit wasn't the worst I've seen, but it did look pretty funky, and was very droopy in the drawers, often appearing as if Konga sported a perpetual load in his furry pants. The unintentionally funniest scenes are near the end, as Konga grows to a staggering degree, almost as tall as Big Ben. At first, when people on the street witness the behemoth their demeanor hardly changes, but then the expected, uncontrolled panic finally comes, as does the trigger happy army, who begin blasting away despite the very obvious fact that Konga is carrying Decker in his shaggy mitt. Oh well, what's the life of one compared to many? Well, perhaps they saw as I did, that Konga did, in fact, have only a poor looking doll, made up to look like a person, in his paw rather than a real human being. Another really goofy part is Konga just stops at Big Ben, and stands there for about five minutes, allowing for the military to get set up. The ending sequence is hardly a battle, but more so target practice as Konga seemed to have little will for retaliation.

The fullscreen (1.66:1) picture on this DVD is excellent, looking very sharp and clean, looking better than any video release I've previously seen, and the mono audio comes through very clear. There are no extras included, except for a couple of previews for the films Godzilla: Final Wars (2004) and MirrorMask (2005).

Cookieman108

If you're interested in some other, cheaply made, good for laughs, giant simian films I'd suggest the following...The Mighty Gorga (1969), Ape (1976), Queen Kong (1976), Mighty Peking Man (1980), and King Kong Lives (1986)...all are available on DVD in some form or another.
"

Two Movies In One.

Chip Kaufmann | Asheville, N.C. United States | 11/06/2009

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Leave it to B movie mogul Herman Cohen (I WAS A TEENAGE WEREWOLF) to give us two movies for the price of one low budget effort and that's what KONGA is. The first hour of the film is remarkably well done with an intelligent script (under the circumstances) and a creative use of color for the background sets. The unique carnivorous plants are cleverly done and the movie is professionally shot by celebrated cameraman Desmond Dickinson (HORROR HOTEL/CITY OF THE DEAD). Add to that an increasingly demented performance by Michael Gough as the mad doctor and a study in feminine frustration from Margo Johns as his assistant and you had the makings of a true classic. However once the "gorilla" enters the picture it, as the Brits would say, "goes straight into the crapper".

I don't have any qualms about them using a guy in a gorilla suit but this is the worst gorilla suit I have ever seen. It was borrowed from celebrated "apeman" George Barrows who should have been hired because whoever they got had no idea how to act like a monkey. Once KONGA was introduced , it's as if the filmmakers knew the jig was up and they just threw in the towel. The special effects become increasingly substandard and there isn't even a pretense of disguising how bad they are. The last fifteen minutes of the film left the audience in hysterics according to people who saw it in 1961 and it's easy to see why. That's what makes KONGA such a guilty pleasure. Adding to the fun is the fact that the cast plays it with an incredibly straight face with no hint of camp. The final shot of the poor little chimp lying dead in the street has to be seen to be believed.

The remarkable thing about this DVD (as mentioned in an earlier review) is how good it looks. I had never seen KONGA in color before much less in widescreen. The color is very important as the first half of the film (as mentioned earlier) seems to have a psychological basis for its color scheme. The widescreen actually makes it looks more expensive than it is until it falls apart at the end. There's no way that they couldn't know how bad it looked and I think they deliberately made it that way. Either way KONGA is one of those movies that is so bad that it's good and they just don't make em like that anymore. Although this single DVD is out of print, there are plenty to go around and if you love old style bad movies than you can't afford to pass this one up especially at these prices."