Konga [VHS]
by John Lemont
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VHS Tape Cover Information
Actor: Austin Trevor, Claire Gordon, Jess Conrad, Margo Johns, Michael GoughDirector: John Lemont
Edition: VHS Tape
Audio: English (Original Language), Analog
Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC
Running Time: 90 minutes
Release Date: 2000-09-05
Audience Rating: Unrated
Publisher: MGM (Video & DVD)
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
VHS Movie Reviews of Konga [VHS]
Movie Review: Rubbish
Summary: 2 Stars
You can always tell a bomb by the picture of a scantily dressed blonde on the advertising. In KONGA, Claire Gordon is the blonde whose only function in both advertising and the film is to be the simpering yet luscious ditz that director Herman Cohen portrays her. The plot is a weird blending of numerous Big Monster films. There is KING KONG whose only serious connection to this stinker is the vaguely reminiscent name. There is GODZILLA who at least had the good sense to fight back against the soldiers ordered to bring him down. And there is MIGHTY JOE YOUNG who showed some basic need to connect with his human caretakers. KONGA, by contrast, is just plain silly. Michael Gough is the real star who steals scene after scene with his smooth hamminess. Gough is Doctor Decker, a botany professor who has lived in Uganda for a year after a plane crash during which time he learns from a shaman the secret of uncontrolled cellular growth. Decker returns to London with a cute chimp who becomes the unwilling subject of that growth. When Decker injects him with that secret substance, he immediately and against scientific law not only assumes huge proportions but also changes species from a chimpanzee to a gorilla. What follows is an illogical sequence of acts from a man who prides himself on his acumen. Gough has great fun in all this as he portrays Decker as the Mad Scientist who is as least as much interested in the charms of Miss Gordon as he is the DNA of Konga. Decker's college class is composed exclusively of teenagers who at the drop of a hat whip out their radios and rock and roll boogaloo just like Steve McQueen and his friends from THE BLOB. Special effects range from the grotesque to the penurious. As Konga placed Decker is his hairy paw it was difficult to resist laughing as Decker kept twisting and yelling for Konga to release him. Konga is played by movie stuntman George Barrows who wore the same gorilla suit plus a diving helmet in the earlier ROBOT MONSTER but with greater believability there. At least as Ro-Man in ROBOT MONSTER Barrows tried to inject some needed vitality by swinging his arms incessantly. As Konga, Barrows does no more than lumber aimlessly as if trying to decide what to do with Decker in tow. The ending with a platoon of British soldiers is a carbon copy of innumerable movies with the army versus the Big Monster. What emerges by the last reel is a vague yet distastful feeling that we had seen this movie before in myriad manifestations--as indeed we had.
Summary of Konga [VHS]
Horror producer Herman Cohen, the genius behind Trog, Berserk, and the immortal I Was a Teenage Werewolf, here brings the world giant-ape action with a British twist. Konga is, of course, a King Kong rip-off, but the filmmakers are so refreshingly brazen about it that it's hard to mind. Botanist Dr. Charles Decker returns from Africa with some brand-new plants and an adorable chimpanzee buddy named Konga. Decker has some revolutionary ideas about "finding the first link in modern evolution between plant and animal life," but don't think about them too much, they'll just give you a headache. The upshot is that Decker develops a serum that makes Konga grow really big. (Primatology fans will be interested to note that Decker's serum also mysteriously turns Konga from a chimpanzee into a gorilla. The wonders of science are myriad.) Alas, like so many of his horror-movie-scientist brethren, Decker is a cold-hearted, ruthless creep who soon has the superstrong Konga doing his evil bidding. In addition to its guy-in-a-gorilla-suit pleasures, Konga offers poorly scaled dolls of the lead characters, fetching giant Venus flytrap puppets, and a genuinely good performance by Michael Gough as the ever more evil Dr. Decker. --Ali DavisHorror VHS Video
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