Blood Capsule #284

KONGA (1961)

Michael Gough is awesome.  Without him, I'm not sure that this film could stand on its own two feet.  It's just a silly riff on King Kong, but it's deliriously entertaining thanks, in large part, to Gough's performance as the mad Dr. Decker.  He simply drips evil.  A little background information on Konga, if I may...it was made for a nugatory $500,000 after writer/producer Herman Cohen had enjoyed some success with genre pictures such as Horrors of the Black Museum and I Was a Teenage Werewolf.  Believe it or not, Konga was pitched under the working title of I Was a Teenage Gorilla.  It was one of the first - if not the first - monster mashes to be shot in color.  As for the plot, we're dealing with all kinds of kooky pseudo-science.  Dr. Decker's plane goes down on a remote island, and as the natives minister to his maladies, he discovers a link between flora and fauna.  It has something to do with cell division?  Basically, he injects growth hormones into various plants and animals.  So, y'know, we get a giant ape.

It's worth noting that the ape is a giant...for the last twenty minutes or so.  It starts as a chimpanzee.  Of course, it mutates into the kind of hairy hominid that was fashionable up until the 60's.  You could say that Konga put a nail in the coffin for stuff like The Ape Man and Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla.  Then Bigfoot happened, but that's an editorial for another day.  Anyway, Gough flat-out rocks here.  I love how Dr. Decker's heinous plans explode in front of him.  At one point, his pet student (that he's in the process of propositioning) is attacked by a carnivorous plant right as Konga towers over both of them.  That's called great cinema, folks.  The ending is a tiny bit disappointing.  This might be the only b-movie where the military has enough armaments to take down the colossal brute.  Does beauty kill the beast?  Nope, just bullets.  A lot of bullets.  Konga isn't on the level of Mighty Joe Young, but it gives The Mighty Peking Man a run for its money.

Remember that Reptilicus comic book I was raving about last year?  Well, that same company issued a Konga comic book, and yes, it's on my Christmas list.  Er, Easter list.  It's on a list!