The Mighty Gorga

1969
Starring
Anthony Eisley as Mark Remington
Megan Timothy as April Adams
Scott Brady as Dan Morgan
Kent Taylor as Tonga Jack Adams
Bruce Kimball as The Witch Doctor/Mort the Clown
Lee Parrish as George
Greydon Clark as Charlie the Elephant ticket seller
Directed by David L. Hewitt

One of the worst rip-offs of King Kong ever, even worse than Queen Kong (which is an epic chore to sit through itself), this masterpiece of horrible filmmaking sinks below the chum of the crap, a benchmark that is not easily passed by those trying to create a worse giant gorilla film. Sure, that genre has some terrible entries: the aforementioned Queen Kong, King Kong Escapes (though I like this one), the Mighty Joe Young remake, A*P*E, the upcoming Kinky Kong, and the classic porn masterpiece King Dong. Giant ape movies will be with us forever, and some of them go on forever like the Peter Jackson version of King Kong. The Mighty Gorga is mercifully short, the best feature of the entire film.

Mark Remington (Anthony Eisley) – Head of the Circus. Almost out of money, except the large amount of cash he blows on an ill-informed mission to Africa to capture a giant gorilla he’s only heard about third handedly. But that’s what you do when you are the White Male Stereotype Guy! April Adams (Megan Timothy) – Runs an exotic animal supply house in Africa that her missing father owned. She somehow picked up a British accent despite her father having no such feature. Dan Morgan (Scott Brady) – The evil exotic animal supplier. Bought the bank not to try to foreclose on April’s place, but is foiled by Mark. Hunts after their party, wrongly assuming they are searching for treasure. Squashed by Gorga. Morgan must be a protege of Ross from the Catching Trouble short. Tonga Jack Adams (Kent Taylor) – April’s daddy, missing famous explorer who shows up in exactly the place Mark and April go, because that’s convenient for the plot. Arnold Shye (Gary Kent) – Agent from Consolidated Circus Consortium, the Ringling Bros/Barnum and Bailey of its day. Gobbling up all the smaller circuses to create a monopoly and control the market on bearded ladies and trapezes. Eventually killed by Cirque du Soleil secret agents during the Second Circus War. George (Lee Parrish) – An employee of April, speaks good English as a joke in the film explains to us. The best character in the film, so of course they kill him off, as he was acting while Black. Jerks! Shot by Morgan while attempting to save everyone. The Witch Doctor (Bruce Kimball) – Ting Tang Walla Walla Bing Bang! Mighty Gorga (A reject Muppet) – If King Kong’s son had a sister, then the two of them mated, then that offspring self-fertilized, then the baby was put in a microwave for an hour or so, then smoked some crack, then maybe, just maybe, it would be as ridiculous as the Mighty Gorga. The T-Rex (One of the world’s worst puppets) – Hey, remember in King Kong when King Kong fought a T-Rex? Well, this King Kong rip-off does, and so the screwed up Gorga puppet must fight an even ridiculously looking T-Rex. Hopefully the puppeteer’s hand wasn’t hurt during the rip-roaring prehistoric action! Killed by Gorga in the climatic battle of two of the world’s lamest monsters.

A woman is chained as sacrifice because she is the next victim of the Mighty Gorgo! As we all know how this works from the various King Kong films, the movie doesn’t even bother to explain what is going on. They then jump right into a circus, as lion taming happens during the opening credits, something every version of King Kong can’t claim to have, so that’s one point for The Mighty Gorga.