Konga is set in London where Dr. Charles Decker (Michael Gough) has returned after his plane crashed in Uganda & was missing presumed dead there for over a year, during that year Decker was living with native tribes in the jungle & learning about new species of plants & the scientific & medical possibilities they held. Bring back a serum that local tribes developed & a Chimpanzee named Konga he intends to carry out experiments into the link between animal & plant life, injecting Konga with the serum the Chimp grow's to human size in a matter of minutes & Decker concludes his experiments are a success although much more work still needs to be done with help of his assistant Margaret (Margot Johns). Not everyone agrees with Decker's revolutionary experiments & he uses Konga to kill all those oppose him or threaten his work. Margaret becomes aware that she is also to be killed by Konga after she discovers too much & tries to use Konga herself to kill Decker first but the giant Ape breaks free & rampages through London...

This British & American co-production was directed by John Lemont & is considered a real Turkey amongst film fans & to be fair Konga is bad but I had a good time watching it & thought it was reasonably entertaining in it's silliness, the whole film seems to have been made as a King Kong (1933) rip-off with a giant Ape that runs amok in a world famous city & is killed by a famous landmark in said city & taken as just a silly & cheap monster film there's some fun to be had here. The script is far too talky & Konga himself is more of a subplot until the last fifteen minutes when he that silly woman Margaret injects loads of growth serum into his arm & he grow's taller than Big Ben, the majority of the film focuses on Dr. Decker & his vague experiments (are they about increasing size or mind control or about changing physical form?) as well as he lecherous longings for his pretty young blonde student Sandra, his possessive & quite frankly dim secretary Margaret also causes him problems as do various other people whom he has to kill off as the script tries to throw in a few murders & an opportunity for the tatty Konga Ape suit to be seen. Don't expect Konga to ask any serious scientific questions as the whole thing is just absurd, what I want to know is why Konga changes from a Chimpanzee to an Ape when he grow's. At 90 minutes long Konga does drag a little in places & it has horribly dated from the dumb cop's to the way the teens talk & act to the daft plans that people come up with, but I liked it's dated quaintness & charm as it gives you a few extra things to laugh at whether the filmmakers wanted you to or not. If taken for what it is & watched in the right frame of mind then Konga is good clean totally ridiculous monster filled fun, nothing more nothing less.

The effects are really poor, the Ape suit was apparently hired from George Barrows & it's a really tatty & unconvincing looking thing. It just looks terrible so directed Lemont has to naturally feature it as much as often in bright light & keep his camera on it for as long as possible with it's shifty moving eye's yet otherwise totally motionless face which is the exact opposite of what he should have done, did this look as bad to audiences back in 1961? It must have. The giant carnivorous plants look like polystyrene & the end shot when one has Sandra's arm in it's trap you can clearly see the green paint flaking off it as she struggles, it really is that cheap. Some of the models look OK but the BIg Ben model at the end is wasted as Konga just stands next to it & nothing else, ion fact his entire rampage through London is nothing more than him walking down a street holding Decker. Not particularly violent & featuring no gore Konga would make good family viewing.

With a supposed budget of about $500,000 I suspect that it was even less than that. Filmed in London here in England. The acting isn't great, in fact apart from Michael Gough's larger than life villain whose motivations & plans are all over the place it's quite poor.

Konga is good fun if your in the right mood & your a fan of silly giant monster films, if not then I would advise you stay well away from this as you will probably hate it. I liked it, Konga is not a good film at all but it has a certain charm that I enjoyed. As a cheap King Kong rip-off it it's bad but good.

If you don't take KONGA too seriously then you might just enjoy it as much as I did. It's a cheap rip-off of the KING KONG tale with a low budget and, best of all, it's British! Add to the mixture a demented scientist in the form of Michael Gough (HORRORS OF THE BLACK MUSEUM) and this is one film you'll be glad you watched. A light atmosphere makes this one extremely easy to sit through, indeed it flies by, and I enjoyed every minute.

One of the best scenes is early on in the film where Gough is making a serum using the extracts from the dodgy plants he found. His saucepan bubbles over (the Bunsen burner must have been too hot!) and his pet cat drinks some of the spilt liquid. Gough immediately shoots the poor feline, claiming that it would have turned into a tiger. From this moment on we know the film is going to be cheap, cheerful and cheesy, with tongue firmly in cheek.

The special effects in this film are remarkably poor, but this only adds to the unintentional hilarity. The exotic plants are obviously made of rubber and wood (in one you can clearly see the flap),and the transformation sequences where Konga grows bigger and bigger occur behind a mysterious mist which materialises before the camera just at these moments. It's easy to see that all of the explosions and transformations are super-imposed or back-projected on to the picture, but all of these downfalls help to make a "so bad it's good" feel to the film.

Gough overacts shamelessly and copes with ridiculously bleached hair (in order to make him look older),the trendy teenagers are amusing (pop star Jess Conrad has a small role),and altogether this film is an entertaining and endearingly British slant on the KING KONG theme. This is an example of why I love the monster movie genre so much. In fact I would say that this is one of the most enjoyable monster films I've ever seen. Watch it and see why!

Dr. Decker returns to London after being presumed dead in a plane crash in Africa. He brings back a chimpanzee named Konga and an understanding to evolve living things. He starts conducting a scientific experiment to change plants and animals into gigantic sizes.

The gorilla suit is really, really, really bad. I expected King Kong and the reveal is laughable. The turn should be a faster growing ape. This struggles for the first hour in a ninety minutes movie. It's not silly enough to be camp. Its greatest sin is that it's boring. When it finally gets to Brit Kong, at least it gets interesting. That part is a bit fun. It's not good but one can have a laugh. The special effects look bad. It's bad green screen. One of the fun aspects of the Japanese monster movies is the use of miniatures. This one desperately needs miniatures. Even the British crowds are performing badly. Their acting is bad. In the final confrontation in front of Big Ben, the crowd is looking one way and Konga is inserted in another part of the screen. Then there is the static standoff where there is no movement in the action. It's all pretty bad. This is the type of B-movie that people can ridicule but only if one has a finger on the fast forward button.