There are many reasons to watch Konga, but none of them have anything to do with quality. Nostalgia, a fondness for rubber monster suits, a drinking game gone too far — all valid. But if you’re looking for storytelling, suspense, or even a halfway-coherent metaphor about science gone wrong, you may want to look elsewhere. Preferably somewhere that doesn’t involve Michael Gough screaming at a chimpanzee while surrounded by houseplants that look like leftovers from a school play.
Konga is a film that desperately wants to be King Kong but ends up as Mighty Joe Meh. It replaces pathos with petulance, grandeur with greenhouse groping, and adventure with a sense of creeping embarrassment. Watching it is like attending a children’s puppet show where halfway through, the puppets commit several felonies and try to justify it with science.
King Kong, Meet Charles Decker (And Run)
Michael Gough — a seasoned actor who deserves better and plays worse — stars as Dr. Charles Decker, a British botanist who returns from Africa having discovered the secret to making living things enormous. He brings with him a baby chimpanzee named Konga and a suitcase full of bad decisions.
Decker wastes no time going full mad scientist, injecting Konga with a mysterious serum that transforms the once-adorable chimp into a hulking man-in-a-suit gorilla capable of murder — and oddly, murder on command. The plot then becomes a checklist of Decker’s professional grievances, with Konga acting as his fur-covered hitman. Scientific rivals, romantic obstacles, anyone who tells him “no” — all are fair game for strangulation by his hairy proxy.
Meanwhile, Decker sexually harasses his student, betrays his loyal assistant, and causes enough carnage in London to make even Dr. Frankenstein say, “Maybe dial it back.” At the film’s climax, Konga is turned into a skyscraper-sized beast thanks to an overdose of the miracle serum — and naturally, the first thing he does is crush the woman who administered it.
Somehow, the film expects us to feel bad for him.
A Botanical Disaster
Let’s be clear: Konga is not a monster movie in the classic sense. It’s a movie about a deeply unpleasant man using a science experiment to terrorize people who don’t like him. That he uses an ape instead of a handgun is the only thing separating this from a particularly aggressive episode of Midsomer Murders.
The monster itself — a man in a gorilla suit (Paul Stockman, bless him) — is given the least menacing treatment possible. No roaring, no menacing silhouette, no sense of scale. He lumbers around in foliage like someone lost at a furry convention. When Konga finally grows to giant size, he breaks through a house roof like he’s crawling out of a paper mâché birthday cake. His face — meant to be fearsome — has the expression of a constipated toddler. It’s hard to be afraid when you’re too busy suppressing laughter.
Puppets, Plants, and Uncomfortable Subtext
What makes Konga truly exasperating is its insistence that it’s saying something meaningful. Decker is meant to be a cautionary tale — a scientist who flies too close to the sun, dragging a chimpanzee with him. But instead of Frankensteinian tragedy, we get a sweaty narcissist who tries to replace his aging assistant with a student half her age, then sends a gorilla to kill her boyfriend when she says no.
The script gives Gough plenty of chances to chew the scenery, and chew he does — like it’s dipped in banana flavoring. Every line is delivered with the manic zeal of a man who just discovered Shakespeare and Red Bull in the same afternoon.
And the dialogue? Try this one on for size: “We are on the threshold of a new age of science — and it is I, Charles Decker, who will lead mankind into the future!” It’s the kind of line you’d hear from a Bond villain, if that villain had tenure and unresolved issues with the biology department.
A Technical Spectacle… Sort Of
Shot in Eastmancolor, Konga looks like a cereal commercial left out in the sun too long. The effects range from charmingly cheap to just plain embarrassing. Miniature sets, mismatched scale shots, and a final showdown in the streets of London that makes Plan 9 from Outer Space look like Inception.
To its credit, the film somehow convinced London authorities to allow a nighttime shoot involving gunfire and a giant ape suit. The resulting footage is indeed chaotic — not due to special effects, but because you can practically hear the local residents calling the police.
And yes, the film ends with Konga reverting to a baby chimpanzee. As if to say: “It was all just a silly experiment.” No consequences. No accountability. Just a whimper, a dead body, and an ape that got way more screen time than emotional development.
Final Verdict: The Beast of Burden
Konga is a cautionary tale — not about science, but about what happens when you try to make a monster movie with the budget of a tea break. It wants to be King Kong, but it forgets the beauty, the heartbreak, and the sheer cinematic awe that made Kong a legend. Instead, it gives us a petty, lecherous scientist and a gorilla who spends half the movie posing for yearbook photos in a jungle diorama.
Is it fun? Occasionally. Is it watchable? Barely. Is it good? No. But it’s the kind of bad that reminds you how fragile genre filmmaking can be — how easily grandeur can become giggle-worthy.
Sometimes, the only thing monstrous is the script.
