THE MIGHTY GORGA / ONE MILLION AC/DC
© 2002 Something Weird Video / Image Entertainment

Mania Grade: C
Disc Grade: A-
Reviewed Format: DVD
Rated: Not Rated
Stars: MIGHTY GORGA - Anthony Eisley, Megan Timothy, Scott Brady; ONE MILLION AC/DC - Gary Kent, Susan Berkely, Natasha
Writers: MIGHTY GORGA - David Prentiss & Jean Hewitt; ONE MILLION AC/DC - Akdon Telmig (Edward D. Wood, Jr.)
Directors: MIGHTY GORGA - David L. Hewitt; ONE MILLION AC/DC - Ed DePriest
Distributor: Something Weird Video / Image Entertainment
Original Years of Release: MIGHTY GORGA - 1970; ONE MILLION AC/DC - 1969
Retail Price: $24.99
Extras: shorts; trailers; galleries; Easter egg
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MIGHTY GORGA / ONE MILLION AC/DC

It's dime store monsters galore in this Something Weird go-around as the faithful and the curious are treated to the poorest man's KING KONG and SON OF KONG rip-off, THE MIGHTY GORGA, backed with the simulated sex hilarity that is ONE MILLION AC/DC. Which, for our more experimental readers, is not quite the "Tom of Finland" epic the title suggests.

It only takes two minutes for THE MIGHTY GORGA to show its budgetary limitations. In a scene directly referencing KING KONG a fair maiden is tied to two posts to wait on something horrifying lingering in the bushes. Rather than leave the audience hanging, arguably the wise choice, director David L. Hewitt thrusts the mighty Gorga in all his resplendent glory right into the audience's faces.

The mighty Gorga, in all his resplendent glory, amounts to a guy in a horrible gorilla outfit with painted-on eyes being shot from a low angle to create the illusion of height and rustling through some low level shrubbery to create the illusion he towers above the trees. (Kids of all ages, get your video cameras and shoot your own version of THE MIGHTY GORGA today! Just read my "How to Make Something Approximating THE MIGHTY GORGA by Lying on Your Stomach and Tilting the Camera Up," soon to be published by... oh, who the hell am I kidding?) After this instant change-the-channel moment, the film continues.

Mr. Remington owns a crappy little circus. Consolidated Circus Attractions wants this crappy little circus. Mr. Remington won't sell. Consolidated Circus Attractions buys out his loan. Mr. Remington suddenly remembers a legend of a giant ape somewhere in Africa and decides to go out and find it. Surprisingly, Mr. Remington is sober.

Actually, if you forget the incredibly cheesy guy in the ape suit and the most abysmal mighty-gorilla-vs.-T-Rex-muppet-battle you'll ever see - folks, this one is so unbelievably cheap I almost choked to death with laughter (my wife was not so lucky; service is on Monday, with open viewings starting on Sunday) - there is a nifty little adventure saga tone for the first hour that evokes the spirit of the classic adventure serials of the '30s and '40s. Before we get to the village that sacrifices virgins to Gorga - and is apparently the only place this 4-plus-story gorilla feasts (thing must have the tiniest stomach) - there is assured character development, exciting sabotage, and genuinely humorous fish out of water antics.

Of course Gorga has to come and screw that all up. The village Gorga has decided to harass is run by apparently the only Polish/Russian tribe in Africa and one that likes to cover up their peculiar lack of pigmentation by speaking like Tonto and smudging themselves with charcoal. As already stated, Gorga himself is a stinker, but what about that cheap plastic hand puppet dinosaur that he battles in a ferocious struggle that leaves one monster dead and the other with a splinter?! (Yes, that's right, Gorga battles a T-Rex and gets a splinter.) With cheap special effects and a budget so low it has to steal footage from GOLIATH AND THE DRAGON, not even bothering to properly adjust the color levels to match the rest of the film, the movie's selling point - the creatures - is actually its least admirable trait, but in the topsy-turvy world of the Something Weird fan, it's the part we love the best. Would be a glorious abomination, if only there wasn't an hour of fairly enjoyable, but tainted by subsequent events, exposition between Gorga's first and second appearances.

Crappy special effects are no stranger to ONE MILLION AC/DC. In fact, the same god-awful T-Rex from THE MIGHTY GORGA shows up here; so does the same stock footage of dinosaurs that graced Al Adamson's HORROR OF THE BLOOD MONSTERS and, just like that fantastic film, the billion dollar special effect of Spectrum-X (black & white footage run through an optical printer with a color filter) is involved. The best way to sum up ONE MILLION AC/DC is a lot of little humping vignettes filling out the main plotline of cavemen trapped in their cave by a plastic T-Rex hand puppet shot at a low angle. In order for the cavemen to escape to forage for food, weapons development must be accelerated and the arrow is created. This little masterpiece was written by none other than Edward D. Wood, Jr. but, sadly, is too obsessed with getting in as much fake fornicating as it can in its scant 65 minutes to offer up much of that revered scribe's blessed dialogue. On top of that the film leans towards comedy, which has always been Wood's forte, even if he didn't know it.

Both films' prints are, for what they are, pretty damn good.  Their low budgets and limited print runs result in less than stellar surviving elements, but these films are both low on scratches and have decent color definition (that's decent and not exceptional). As usual the sound elements are in mono, are tinny and suffer from hiss, plus they are a bit low - so turn up the volume.

As is becoming more and more apparent with each Something Weird Video release, the shorts included as extra features aren't truly shorts but clips from other productions (or truncated porno films). Classic comic Hank Henry appears in "Prehistoric Daze," a topless bathing beauties piece that has a prehistoric theme. (Note: this bit appears to be part of a larger piece, another segment of which, with an ancient Egypt theme, appears on the SWV release of THE SECRET SEX LIVES OF ROMEO AND JULIET / THE NOTORIOUS CLEOPATRA under the name "Cleopatra's Asp.") This segment is actually rather cute and recalls the old Donald Duck educational shorts from back in the day, except Donald was never surrounded by beautiful topless women; otherwise, I may have actually learned something. "Diane the Jungle Girl and her Gorilla of Love" appears to be another clip pretending to be a short. This one is about a girl who hates the man but loves the gorilla; gunplay is involved and so are bikini tops, yum. The homemade film "Nightmare" gets its long awaited DVD release. Here a young man goes back in time, is harassed by dinosaurs and then returns to the present day to be harassed again by a tiny fake T-Rex (shot at a low angle, of course). The beast rising from the waves scene is truly memorable.

It's trailers aplenty with the original trailer for ONE MILLION AC/DC showing off all you need to see from the film. There's the Frank Bonner star vehicle EQUINOX, along with trailers for two films with essentially the same special effects, VALLEY OF THE DRAGONS (English version) and LA ISLA DE LOS DINOSAURIOS (ISLAND OF THE DINOSAURS) (non-English version). "See childhood's most charming and exciting story," TOM THUMB, in trailer form and then wash it down with Bert I. Gordon's rip-off of his own AMAZING COLOSSAL MAN series, THE CYCLOPS. Hate fake-looking Loch Ness monsters? Well, you'll have plenty to be pissed off about with THE LOCH NESS TERROR; it features the goofiest Nessie this side of AMAZON WOMEN ON THE MOON - in fact it may be the same Nessie (offering a rare glimpse of the creature before it became Jack the Ripper). Hugh Beaumont wasn't always hard on the Beav; he was also hard on dinosaurs in THE LOST CONTINENT. Even wonder what THE EVIL DEAD would have been like if instead of an invisible wood demon attacking Ash it was an invisible baby T-Rex? Well, wonder no more cause that's what SOUND OF HORROR is all about.

Rounding out the disc is the "Gallery of Amazing Trash-O-Rama" exploitation art with radio spot rarities and an Easter egg featuring a commercial that has King Kong driving a Volkswagen.