"Queen Kong" from 1976 is a film I always wanted to see ever since I first heard of its existence, around 1978 or so. Being a lifelong fan of all things "giant monster destroys things" (especially Godzilla) I began a lifelong search to find this on bootleg. Incredibly, despite most other things turning up eventually, this never surfaced.
I learned a bit more about it over the years, like that it actually was released in a small amount of theaters abroad, being pulled almost immediately. I met some other monster fans over the years who also were searching for this film but to no avail.
So when I heard that "Queen Kong" was actually going to get a DVD release, I was pretty happy. Other giant ape movies from the 70's were released on DVD, like The Mighty Peking Man (a.k.a. Goliathon) and A.P.E., so I felt this was deserved. I was psyched on finally seeing, after 25 years or so, what this film was about.
Well, to put it mildly, this film is garbage. It is complete, utter crap. It's not even "so bad it is good" like say, "Robot Monster." This film is horrid because it doesn't have a clue: it's totally void of any heart, wit, or charm. And you need at least two of those to make an entertaining "bad" movie.
The shame of it all is that the premise has a lot of potential, to make a feminist "King Kong." In the hands of filmmakers who actually knew what they were doing, the idea may have had a chance.
The first 30 minutes of this film is so unbelievably mind-numbing, it just seems like someone took an expensive camera in the backyard and started filming. Now normally, that sounds like the making of a "so bad it's good" film, but again, no charm, wit or heart, so the film doesn't work on any level. Nothing happens in the first 30 minutes at all - it literally is a complete waste of time.
30 minutes in, Queen Kong finally shows up, and after some extremely poor scenes, 20 minutes later (yes, just 20 minutes later) Queen kong is en route to London, having been captured. In London, after Queen Kong escapes what looks like a big outdoor dinner party, she then goes to Big Ben (after about 5 seconds of fun model work and the rest, horrible model work), climbs up, and battles helicopters. The male substitute for Fay Wray makes a speech over a copter's PA about feminism, and it ends soon after.
Again, there isn;t a trace of wit, cleverness, heart, or charm in this totally bland take on the "King Kong" legend. It's hard to even laugh at the brief monster battles because of the lack of these things. Dino DeLaurentes (sp), who made 1976's "King Kong" and forced this out of the theaters, had nothing to worry about really - word of mouth would have killed this off within days. In comparison to the other "Kong" rip-offs of the day I mentioned, "The Mighty Peking Man" is so vastly superior to this it boggles the mind, and even the poor "A.P.E." is so far ahead of this dreck. And don't even think about comparing this to any Godzilla film - the worst Godzilla film looks like Gone With The Wind next to "Queen Kong."
The one lone good thing about "Queen Kong" is that the girls are all very pretty and beautiful. And 1976 beautiful is pretty hot. The fact that they bothered to get good looking girls is at least a little something to the filmmaker's credit. If you can get hold of the film's trailer without buying the DVD, all the FX shots you'd be interested in seeing are mostly in there. There's no need at all to watch anything but the trailer. One day I'll listen to the director's commentary, just out of morbid curiosity.
I learned a bit more about it over the years, like that it actually was released in a small amount of theaters abroad, being pulled almost immediately. I met some other monster fans over the years who also were searching for this film but to no avail.
So when I heard that "Queen Kong" was actually going to get a DVD release, I was pretty happy. Other giant ape movies from the 70's were released on DVD, like The Mighty Peking Man (a.k.a. Goliathon) and A.P.E., so I felt this was deserved. I was psyched on finally seeing, after 25 years or so, what this film was about.
Well, to put it mildly, this film is garbage. It is complete, utter crap. It's not even "so bad it is good" like say, "Robot Monster." This film is horrid because it doesn't have a clue: it's totally void of any heart, wit, or charm. And you need at least two of those to make an entertaining "bad" movie.
The shame of it all is that the premise has a lot of potential, to make a feminist "King Kong." In the hands of filmmakers who actually knew what they were doing, the idea may have had a chance.
The first 30 minutes of this film is so unbelievably mind-numbing, it just seems like someone took an expensive camera in the backyard and started filming. Now normally, that sounds like the making of a "so bad it's good" film, but again, no charm, wit or heart, so the film doesn't work on any level. Nothing happens in the first 30 minutes at all - it literally is a complete waste of time.
30 minutes in, Queen Kong finally shows up, and after some extremely poor scenes, 20 minutes later (yes, just 20 minutes later) Queen kong is en route to London, having been captured. In London, after Queen Kong escapes what looks like a big outdoor dinner party, she then goes to Big Ben (after about 5 seconds of fun model work and the rest, horrible model work), climbs up, and battles helicopters. The male substitute for Fay Wray makes a speech over a copter's PA about feminism, and it ends soon after.
Again, there isn;t a trace of wit, cleverness, heart, or charm in this totally bland take on the "King Kong" legend. It's hard to even laugh at the brief monster battles because of the lack of these things. Dino DeLaurentes (sp), who made 1976's "King Kong" and forced this out of the theaters, had nothing to worry about really - word of mouth would have killed this off within days. In comparison to the other "Kong" rip-offs of the day I mentioned, "The Mighty Peking Man" is so vastly superior to this it boggles the mind, and even the poor "A.P.E." is so far ahead of this dreck. And don't even think about comparing this to any Godzilla film - the worst Godzilla film looks like Gone With The Wind next to "Queen Kong."
The one lone good thing about "Queen Kong" is that the girls are all very pretty and beautiful. And 1976 beautiful is pretty hot. The fact that they bothered to get good looking girls is at least a little something to the filmmaker's credit. If you can get hold of the film's trailer without buying the DVD, all the FX shots you'd be interested in seeing are mostly in there. There's no need at all to watch anything but the trailer. One day I'll listen to the director's commentary, just out of morbid curiosity.