10 King Kong Movies Ranked Worst To Best

7. King Kong Lives

King Kong 1976
De Laurentiis Entertainment Group

Dino De Laurentiis may have inspired (and created) more cinematic flotsam than any other producer: not content with remaking King Kong very badly, he subsequently followed it up with this masterpiece of unintentional comedy.

Being asked to believe that Kong survived his climactic tumble is one thing; being told that Dr Linda Hamilton has been looking after him in Atlanta ever since is more likely to raise a smirk. However, by the time Lance Kerwin’s explorer chances across a double-D female Kong in Borneo while Hamilton carries out a heart transplant on The King using oversized instruments and a crane, you may well be helpless with laughter.

Movie scientists are of course idiots so the doc keeps our hirsute hero chained up in a hangar patrolled by a single guard, who proclaims, “the other monkey’s gone apesh*t” as Kong gets a whiff of the female’s scent and decides to break free. Somehow able to grab her and elope without being followed or spotted, he takes his new bride to “Honeymoon Ridge” so he can make goo-goo eyes at her, snuggle up and show her why they call him The King. Funny by itself, this scene works even better when you realize it’s two men inside the monkey suits.

Contributor

Ian Watson is the author of 'Midnight Movie Madness', a 600+ page guide to "bad" movies from 'Reefer Madness' to 'Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead.'