The Mighty Gorga

Hey folks. Well the new year is upon us. 2019. So far New York hasn't fallen like in that George Eastman post apocalypse film so I will just have to move on. Yup, it wouldn't be Rotten Reelz Reviews without some goofy request so my dad asked me to give a dual pack a view and we will see how awful this is. Yes, I am convinced this will hurt as it is from Something Weird Video collection. For those not in the knowing, I'll spell it out. Exploitation Galore! Sci-fi, Action, Thrillers and Biker flicks a happenin'. So yeah let's cross our fingers and hope for the best. This is The Mighty Gorga a.k.a. Kong Island and Attack of the Death Monsters

General Aldo's drunk again!

Yupper we have a King Kong knock-off with multiple titles. Not since A*P*E* back in 2016. Ah memories. Can't find my damn car keys half of the time but I can recall a stinky banana biter flick.

Exploitation director/writer David L. Hewitt (The Time Travelers, Horrors of the Red Planet, Monsters Crash the Pajama Party, Gallery of Horror, Journey to the Center of Time and The Girls from Thunder Strip) brings us this particular cinematic wonder via 1969. We open with a maiden lashed to two trees left as a sacrifice by the natives. Now if this was a Joe D Amato flick, her nipples would have been iced to jut out and she would have a couple of shammies to cover her bits.

Moving right along,the circus is in full swing but the people are bored. Hmph, lions. Whatever. With a bit of exposition between a barker and one of the clowns, Mort. A bigwig circus conglomerate is looking to buy up the place for pennies on the dollar. Plot point, Scoob!!

Circus owner Mark Remington (Anthony Eisley of Hawaiian Eye, The Wasp Woman, The Naked Kiss and 77 Sunset Strip) is on the verge of bankrupt. Apparently dwarf tossing and freak shows are just not what 1969 crowds want anymore so he is following his leads of a giant gorilla guaranteed to keep the stands packed...or until a better pinball machine comes out.

An expedition made up of a circus owner and his tracker for hire are searching the African Jungle for a giant gorilla. Sounds kooky I know. White folks do this sort of bad touch Mother Nature all the time. Also Africa looks an awful lot like Boca Raton but maybe I am confused.

Almost Mannix.

Mark and his tracker/great white hunter, Tonga Jack (Kent Taylor of Sued for Libel, Four Girls in White, I'm Still Alive and Half Past Midnight) are in hot pursuit of the beastie when they find out Tonga's daughter has been kidnapped. Mark offers to aid Tonga in his time of need. Psst, Mark. Get a discount on your safari, bro. A rival hunter Morgan (Scott Brady of He Walked by Night, Canon City, Johnny Guitar, Lux Video Theatre and The Loretta Young Show) is um, well technically the bad guy but he is as equally greedy and bad touching the lands as Mark so I'm confused again.

April (Megan Timothy of Good Morning... and Goodbye!, Hells Chosen Few, Charro!, The Mighty Gorga, The Girls from Thunder Strip and The Female Bunch) proves to be the arm candy/love interest rather quickly and yes she is completely helpless and needs a big, strong man for saving her and so on. Ugh. She also has issues with rival business as Morgan keeps dropping by offering to buy out her property just a day or so after she has an "incident or accident". Just convienent he was in the neighborhood. Y'know after one of his flunkies tried trashing the place and failed. So similar subplots collide, Mark and April are clearly made for one another.

Jiggle! Maybe the monster will move on.

One point in the expedition, Mark and April come across some skulls on sticks and I just knew my butt puckered remembering all those Ruggero Deodato Cannibal flicks. Naturally the natives they hired are creeped because of ancient stories of giant monsters. To be fair, there is supposed to be a gargantuan gorilla in the jungle so I wouldn't scoff at them. Also that would be my stuff they are hauling so really don't want it trashed.

Laughed my ass off when I realize sub plot 3 has villagers sacrificing the virgins to Gorga and the witch doctor is Mort the Clown. Yes, actor Bruce Kimball (Hard on the Trail, Cain's Cutthroats, Rollercoaster and Drive In Massacre) has a double act for this flick. Quick question, are there regions of Africa that have that many Polynesian girls? They had a few on stand-by.

Subplot 4 has an old timey hidden treasure on this here island. Wait a minute, why are there volcanoes in Africa?

Okay normally I try to give a fair shake but the ADR (Automatic Dialogue Replacement) makes the sacrificial maiden sound like she is moaning in the booth. We couldn't hear Gorga half of the time and the staged recordings are clearly indoors while the scene shots are outside and the mono sounds goofy.  The Gorilla is passable but the T-Rex (Oh of course there's a T-Rex) is clearly a kid's puppet superimposed against Mark and it looks damn silly.

I'm no good at confrontation!

At the end of the day you have an underdog story of the little capitalist trying to stay afloat while corporation is gobbling up the competition. And a lost treasure, some superstitious natives in red face and King Kong and well I get baffled what I am supposed to be getting from this. Is it a bad flick? No, not really. It is a good flick? Yeah gonna have to say, no. A lot of good ideas but not enough budget or way to hone all those ideas into something coherent. Little bit of CGI stock footage of previous dinosaur flicks and it would clean right up. I think. 

Yes I am the "eye candy", what of it?

A*P*E*

Hiyas kiddies! Did you miss me? No? Not even a little bit. Again, I stress if there is something you want me to review, all you need to do is to hit me up on Facebook via Rotten Reelz Reviews page and leave a suggestion. If needs be, I will create an e-mail solely for suggestions, comments and complaints. That being said however how about a King Kong knock off? Not enticing enough? Well if I through a giant killer great white shark, would that help? Still no? Alright dammit I am pulling out all the stops and aiding an enormous python as well. That clenched it. This is APE.

The suspense of a man in a gorilla suit vs a snake is killing me!

Okay let's get the alternative English titles out of the way because there are so many and each are a gem in of themselves. The New King Kong, Super Kong, Hideous Mutant, A*P*E*, The King Ape, A*P*E*: Attacking Primate Monster and my personal favorite that made me snicker; Attack of the Giant Horny Gorilla. No, I did not make up that title.

Brought to us by Kukje Movies in 1976 (Final Temptation, Cheondong, The Bloody Fist, Valley of the Wicked, Iron Will, Kung Fu Party and Two Sisters), a South Korean production company brings us the impeding terror that is APE... Shot primarily in Seoul and probably a few back lots and closed sets for the small scale footage, so expect a few goofs, some factual errors and more bad line English dubbing than most early Jackie Chan flicks. Normally I honestly try to be objective to most movies, even the ones I do not care for but every so often, I get one of these movies that make me want to pull my hair out. I suppose I should begin at the beginning then.

God, I hope that isn't a real, dead shark he is wrestling with.

If you will recall, many moons ago I reviewed Mighty Peking Man which was a rip-off of King Kong as well, and while the story wasn't to really take away from, nor was it original and genius, it still was vastly superior to this pile of monkey flop I felt was interesting today. While both films were cashing in on the 1975 remake starring Jeff Bridges, Charles Grodin and Jessica Lange, this was the most poorly executed, lower budget and having no idea how to scale items and creatures. I was baffled how a 36 foot ape is towering of a 20 story high rise. Whoops? Also what drags in the audience for a King Kong wannabe? Let's put it in 3-D! Ahh Styrofoam rocks are flying off the screen! Our movie opens up on a small scale freighter that looks like it is floating in a kiddie pool as apparently we have a group of sailors, great white hunters that have tagged and trapped our ape...totally off screen. You know, because that would have been interesting to view.

Our ADA recordings are so loud and we get so much static between lines it is actually painful to hear in mono. Riveting material aside, our creature finally starts wake from the "gas" they put him out with wears off pretty darn quick and there's a rumble at the high seas as a badly constructed and fake fur glued hand appears. The boat just up and explodes and maybe you shouldn't transport your giant apes next to that cargo hold full of nitroglycerin. Quick note, apes aren't known for their swimming ability at all. Looks like they raided a Wal-Greens for one of those cheaply made gorilla costumes and hoped that no one would see the Velcro portions in the back. For no reason other than Jaws hit the charts, the ape is combating a large shark for...reasons and proceeds to slap around said blatantly obvious rubber shark to a battle to the death. Also thank God he was so close to the shore, given most water is deeper than 36 feet as our annoyed simian makes his way to Korea to start his rampage. SOLDIERS LEAVE APE ALONE!..is what he would have said if given a voice for his rage.

Of course every giant ape needs a helpless blonde girl to scoop up and our visiting actress to South Korea is...Joanna Kerns from Growing Pains? Eh, beats working with Kirk Cameron. Oh this scene with kids sneaking into an amusement park which is vacant for no particular reason, you see our A*P*E* gawking longingly at the kids to the point I am calling a sex offender hot line. It had no real context to anything. He didn't trash the place or eat the little ones so overall no point to it.

This film is the reason of drinking games with your friends. Already I have seen enough guide lines(wires that keep an object, person or thing in frame of your shot) for the 3-D cheese to cause alcohol poisoning. With houses, buildings and even streets looking like they are painted cardboard and Styrofoam, it is no wonder than King Kong and Jaws were not threatened by this turd waffle. This film offers excellent material for riffing and outright mocking but aside from that, yeah don't bother with it.

Cold waters doesn't improve APE's disposition...or image.