Leoni Haney
Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.
Quiet Muffin
This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.
Nicole
I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.
Michael_Elliott
Konga (1961) ** (out of 4)Dr. Decker (Michael Gough) goes down with his plane in Africa and is believed dead but a year later he returns from the jungle. He begins working on an experiment that can cause things to grow in size and after trying it on various plants he injects Konga, a chimp that he brought back with him. Soon he's using the now gorilla to kill off his enemies but eventually the killer grows to the size of, well, King Kong.KONGA is a fairly loved British film that manages to not only rip off KING KONG but also MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE. I'm sure mixing those two films could have made for a good movie but sadly this thing here isn't it. There are some fun ideas scattered throughout the movie but in the end there are just way too many flaws. The biggest problem being the fact that the 90 minutes drag by at times and there are moments when the film comes to a complete stand still.Another problem is that the special effects are quite laughable. This includes the early scenes where the small chimp grows a little bit bigger. These transformation sequences are downright awful with the wavy screen doing very little. Things don't fair much better once the man-in-the-outfit happens. Once we get into KING KONG territory things really don't do anything because the budget is so low that the large gorilla really can't do anything. I will admit that the MURDER IN THE RUE MORGUE pieces are quite effective and I did enjoy the creature stalking around and killing for the doctor.Gough turns in a good performance in the lead as does Margo Johns but neither are great enough to make the film work. KONGA has a few good ideas but there are far too many logical issues and the lack of any good special effects keep this from being more than a cheap "C" movie.
mark.waltz
A cute baby chimp becomes the pawn in a mad scientist's game, turning larger and larger with assistance from the greenery of meat-eating plants. As the chimp grows, so does his species, as by the time he's man-sized, he looks more like a gorilla. Even the cutest baby gorilla looks nothing like a chimpanzee baby, no matter how close they are in relation. That is my only complaint in this above average science fiction thriller that has some genuine frights and some truly wonderfully over-the-top performances.Michael Gough is the mad scientist/professor, having been somehow mentally changed after a plane crash in Africa stranded him in the jungle for a year. Learning about man-eating plants and rescuing the baby chimp, Gough returns to his old job at the London England college and immediately makes waves with the dean who meets a violent end at the hands of the enlarged primate. His aging but beautiful assistant/lover (Marjo Johns) is at first horrified by what he's doing, but desperate to be in love, she stands by him, ultimately going mad by his interest in a young student assistant (Claire Gordon) who gets her own little introduction to one of Gough's experiments while fighting him off after he makes an unwanted pass. Of course, like "King Kong" (which utilized in different versions the Empire State Building and original World Trade Centers), there's a last minute interruption with the giant creature hanging outside the Tower of London looking on almost child-like at the gathering crowd.There's almost a sadness towards the treatment of the baby chimpanzee, obviously dependent on both Gough and Johns for affection and life's necessities, and the final moment is almost tear-jerking. The frights don't come from the chimp/gorilla's attacks on the victims (audiences were used to those from such films as "White Pongo", "Bride of the Gorilla" and "Gorilla at Large") but from the scenes in Gough's lab with the meat-eating plants. For that matter, there's no revelation of what happened with Gordon at the end of the film, so the audience is left wondering if she turned into Ellen Greene from "Little Shop of Horrors" or one of the arriving firemen managed to rescue her from a certain fate worse than death. Still, this does remain consistently entertaining even though the special effects showing Konga's sudden growths are less than adequate.
museumofdave
It's A Gorilla film, folks! Whether its Kong or Konga, Mighty Joe Young or The Ape, I love gorilla movies, especially the kind where men in cloddish hairy suits lunge around the streets terrifying entire populations. This is one of those--a totally inept mad scientist movie that maintains momentum through sheer foolishness, complete with foaming beakers in the lab, human dreams of world domination, strange murders late at night, and best of all, a gorilla that just gets larger with every injection. This is a silly romp, filmed in bright pastels, and riddled with clichéd dialogue. I had fun, and if you like this sort of thing, you probably will, too. This film and The Little Shop of Horrors were made in the 1960s. and both feature overgrown carnivorous plants with strange appetites for human flesh. What was it about 1960, anyway? It must have been the something in the water!
Genevieve
I don't even know where to begin.... First off, my uncle showed it to me when he came down for a visit, saying it was serious "Mystery Science Theater 3000" material. And, after seeing it, I agree. It was so bad, words fail me. Yet, it was so funny too. (*POSSIBLE SPOILERS*) First off, how does a chimp transform into a man in a gorilla suit? I don't think anyone could answer that, because it's scientifically impossible; but that is the case here. Doctor Decker injects cute lil Konga with a serum, and Konga becomes a man in a gorilla suit.And, speaking of Doctor Decker, he is such a friggin' psycho, why in the world didn't his assistant notify the police after she knew of how he was using Konga to kill people? Okay, yeah, she loved him, but she didn't like the way he was killing people. Yet, she's all like, "I'll keep it a secret until he cheats on me." Sounds *REAL* smart there ma'am.And cheating? Oh yes. Our piggish Doctor decides to lure a young blonde college co-ed to the greenhouse in order to attempt to have sex with her... and then, she gets eaten by his plants. The assistant gets killed by Konga. And Konga dies too. Dismal... isn't it? This film needs to be seen... because it sucks so bad. Believe me. The only plus side is that Decker the douche gets killed by Konga too.
