Congo (1995)

There's a part where one of the gray gorillas loses its arm from this laser. That's probably the campiest part of the whole movie. And also Laura Lenny's line where she says, put them on the endangered species list right before she like mows down the gorillas with the laser. Sublime. I love that part so much. Hello and welcome to Camp Kaiju Monster Movie Podcast. We're your

hosts, Matt Levine. And Vincent Hannum. And we're talking about all of our favorite monster movies, the good, the bad, and the downright campy, and asking if they stand the test of time. Traditional kaiju, creature features, space invaders, the supernatural, and everything in between. All strange beasts are welcome here. Camp Kaiju is sponsored by Zach Linder and the Zach Pack, powered by Coldwell Banker Realty. Your source for real estate, home rehab, fixing and flipping for investor

clients and residential buyers. Reach out to the Zach Pack today for real estate services. Follow the Zach Pack on social media and contact the Zach Pack for investment opportunities. Link in the show notes. for the world's most advanced communications technology. A shocking discovery has been made. What was that? Lock your remote. Give me a thermal reading result to 6 -6. It will take two young scientists into the heart

of the African jungle. Where a secret hidden for 2 ,000 years holds the key to the future. This is Karen Ross. 1 -4 -5 -2, Houston, do you read? You used to work for the CIA, and now you're tropical. Some will come to it for science. This is a big deal, Charles. This is a big fight. Some for fortune. A diamond mine of incredible bounty. And some to return home. She doesn't really belong anywhere, does she? No, she belongs here. Together, they will search. My boss, he

thought I wasn't going to make it. He sent another expedition. Drawn deep into a mystery. Camp destroyed, people dead, a gray gorilla or something. No such thing as a gray gorilla. Well, I saw one. And the more they discover. The same hieroglyphics over and over. The greater the danger. What do they say? We are watching you. See, they're smart. They're too damn smart. Watch out! Go! We're getting out of here. What about them? Put them

on the endangered species list. From the best -selling novel by the author of Jurassic Park. The myth of the killer ape is true. Congo. Where you are the endangered species. Vincent, how you doing? Oh, so good. Here we are. Season five, part two, Hot Shots. And we are beginning this crazy second half of 2025 with Congo celebrating its 30th anniversary. Yeah, almost exactly. I think this came out in like late July of 95. Oh my gosh. Why aren't they getting back to us?

The cast. Laura Linney, where are you? Yeah. Bruce Campbell, like he hasn't returned any of our hundreds of phone calls that we left for him. Come on. We just want to get you on the pod, you know? Bruce. Talk to me, baby. Come on. That seems like the kind of thing Bruce Campbell would say, actually. Yeah. Yeah. I just have to say right off the bat, I did not know Bruce

Campbell was in this movie. I actually did a double take and I had to like lean forward at first and think, is that really Bruce Campbell? My man, it was so good. Yeah, it's a fun kind of cameo. Hopefully that's not too much of a spoiler, but he's a small role in this movie, but it's very fun to see him almost right off the bat. Yeah, yeah. We'll talk more about the cast in the movie, but lots of heavy hitters in this one. For sure. How are you doing? I'm

doing well. We are recording this on the last day of July, although this probably will be released in early to mid -August. Summer's flying by, but it's mostly pretty good. Totally, totally. So August is August Bites here at Cam Kaiju. You know, it's the dog days of summer. It's getting a little hot out there. Maybe you're getting a little anxious about going back to school for all you students and teachers out there. And you're just thinking August can be great, but

sometimes August bites. And we're here to provide you some animals that may. bite your head off what's the featured animal in congo well there are there's a good gorilla amy good gorilla there are some other good gorillas as well but then there are some vicious predatory bloodthirsty ancient unknown apes in this movie as well that may bite your head off and it's great if they're not mowed down with a laser gun before that Yeah. Put them on the endangered species list. Yep.

I'm getting a little ahead of ourselves. Sorry. But there's so much fun stuff about this movie. It is basically a killer ape movie, but I don't know. The story is kind of weird. It's like a secret primitive race of apes, which does not sound good when I say it out loud. And I'm sure we'll dig into some of those issues in the movie as well. Yeah. Yeah. What movie are you bringing

to Camp Kaiju for our next episode? Oh, next coming up in two weeks will be Jaws 2, the sequel starring Roy Scheider and directed by, I know he was the second unit director on Jaws. Nope, I am wrong about what I just said. Nick's what I just said. Jaws 2 is directed by Jeannot Swark. Check my pronunciation on that. Just alphabet soup of. that this man's name is, but he's a French director. Oh, he just died this past year.

Okay, well, we're going to talk about him and his career next time on Jaws 2 here at Camp Kaiju. I can't wait. I saw that movie a long time ago, and this director, whose name I also don't know how to pronounce, Jeannot Schwark? I don't know if that's right, but I've heard that name a lot before, and I would like to learn a little bit more about him. I'll have to brush up before our next recording. You ought to. And everyone out there, brush up on your jaws. Get it? Yeah.

Brush your jaws. Brush your jaws. Yeah, remember to floss, too. So many bad jokes already. This is a perfect way to kick off Season 5, Part 2 with all of the bad jokes we can possibly provide. Woo! Yep, that's how we do it. I'm curious, have you seen the new Jurassic World movie yet? I have not, because I am terrible at getting out to the theaters. But, you know, I hear mixed to positive reviews, actually. So, you know, I'm not an eager beaver. I was burned by Jurassic

World Dominion pretty bad. With that said, as soon as it's streaming, I will watch it. And I will save my judgment until then. Yeah, I've heard good things too, and I'm actually pretty excited about it, despite how much I disliked the last few Jurassic World movies. This one looks pretty good, and I might try to hit the theater sometime soon, so we'll have to get on that. Nice, get on that. What is Shockwaves? Yeah, Shockwaves is an older movie from 77, I

believe. It just played at the Trilon. The plot can be summed up in two words, zombie Nazis. And I feel like a lot of monster movie fans out there probably know about it. It's really weird. It's like a slow burn, dreamlike, surreal, low budget, schlocky horror movie about, again, zombie Nazis. So check it out. It's not playing at the trial on anymore, but it's a weird, maybe not good, but very interesting movie. Okay. Okay. Yeah. You had me at zombie Nazis. Yeah. We were

talking before the recording started. You've seen some monster movies recently as well, especially of the Italian horror variety. Oh, yeah. I saw Demons. I saw, which was not a Dario Argento picture, but was he involved? He was a producer, maybe? I think he was, yeah. And if I remember right, that was directed by Lamberto Bava, who is Mario Bava's son, but I could be wrong about that. Yes, and I need to do my homework on Mario Bava, too. Homework like it's a chore. No, I

need to do my deep dive into Baba's work. But yeah, I like to go down rabbit holes when I watch movies. So Demons led me to Suspiria. Well, Demons, I got to Demons via Zombie or Dawn of the Dead 2 as it was released originally in Italy, which is wild to me. that the Italians were like, yeah, this is a sequel to Dawn of the Dead. Like, no, it has nothing to do with Dawn of the Dead. Let's just slap that name on there and exploit that a little bit. Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant.

I've actually heard from a certain listener, Jonathan Rasmussen. I know you're listening, but Jonathan has asked us if and when we ever get to zombie movies, he would love to be a part of that episode. And I said, absolutely. It's a genre we haven't covered as extensively as I'd like to because there's so much out there. Yeah, indeed. But hopefully soon to come on Camp Kaiju. We'll see. But again, tonight we are talking

about Congo. Last time on Camp Kaiju, we talked about Ebira Horror of the Deep for Kaijulai, which was a fun episode. And then we announced our Season 5 Part 2 titles. So check out that little teaser if you haven't done so already. Oh, yeah. And we've got some great feedback from that episode I will share later on in Mania's mailbox. Awesome. Before we get any further in this episode, I do just want to cover a couple nuts and bolts here. We want to thank you all

again so much for hanging out with us. Please rate and review Camp Kaiju wherever you listen. You can also send us listener comments at campkaiju at gmail .com. or on our Instagram page at camp underscore kaiju underscore podcast. If you would like to be a featured voice on the show, leave us a voicemail at 612 -470 -2612, telling us about all your favorite monster movies and memories. Please also check out our website, campkaijupodcast

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future. And on that subject, I just wanted to give another very hearty thank you to our current patrons, Jason, Beast Drool, Chris B., Sean, Peggy, and our anonymous patron. Thank you all so much. 100%. Thank you, thank you, thank you. We'd love to hear from you and get any comments or questions or thoughts you all have on Menia's mailbox. Indeed. Yeah. Can't wait to read your

thoughts and feedback. One thing I wanted to mention real quick, I think we might have mentioned this on the Eberra recording as well, but Shin Godzilla, one of my favorite recent Godzilla movies, will be re -released into theaters August 14th, so coming up pretty soon. If you have not seen that, check it out. It is awesome. It's a very unique, creative, complicated Godzilla movie. I really love it. Love that complicated

Godzilla movie. That's true. Maybe not a complicated movie, but there's a movie coming out August 21st that I keep seeing ads for. It's called Primitive War. It is, let me read the brief synopsis via Google here. During the Vietnam War, a recon unit ventures to an isolated jungle valley to uncover the fate of a missing platoon. They soon find themselves in a fight for their lives against an unexpected enemy, prehistoric dinosaurs. But really, aren't all dinosaurs prehistoric? Yeah,

you would think so. Yep. Not the modern kind of dinosaur, the prehistoric. Yeah, right. Not historical dinosaurs, prehistoric dinosaurs. That's pretty old. Dinosaurs are old. That's our takeaway of the night. That sounds great. I've seen like a teaser trailer for that movie before, but I did not know the whole synopsis. That sounds pretty cool. It looks like it's totally riding the Jurassic Park coattails, but you know what? Who cares? Let's get more dinosaur movies

that aren't Jurassic Park. That's all I want. I just want more. As much as I love Jurassic Park, I want other dinosaur movies. Yeah, totally. Yep. Before we get into Congo itself, one of my favorite features we do here on Camp Kaiju is today or this month in monster movie history, I have a list of movies, monster movies that came out in early to mid -August on our Google Doc here. Did any of those titles jump out at you? Yes. Let me look at these. There's so many

good ones. Jason and the Argonauts, Frankenstein Conquers the World, The Brain That Wouldn't Die, Dinosaurus. Black Sunday. Is that a Mario Bava film? It sure is. Yeah, it's a great one. We are connecting dots here tonight. Yeah, I started this movie last year and I never finished it, but I was definitely riveted. It's just for its time. It's 1960. It's black and white, but it's gory. It's really visually visceral. I need to

go back and finish that. So this is me saying to everybody, I will finish Black Sunday before our next recording. Black Sunday is great. That's the one that I was going to choose as well. Huge Mario Bava fan. Really beautiful. Like you said, very gory and intense, especially for 1960, which in my opinion is the year that modern horror began. That's the year of Psycho, Eyes Without a Face, Peeping Tom, the British movie. Jigoku, a really great Japanese horror movie. So 1960,

maybe my favorite year in movie history. Wow. All right. But since you chose my title, let's see which one am I going to come up with next? I'm going to go with City of the Living Dead from 1980, which is another Lucio Fulci movie. I think it's the one that he made right before The Beyond, which is very disgusting. And yeah, City of the Living Dead, another like. Kind of trashy, kind of sleazy, very gory zombie horror movie, but like really stylish and entertaining

at the same time. So you're right. Everything is connecting. Mario Bava, Lucio Fulci. It all comes together. Zombies. I've heard of that movie, too. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Cool. Good stuff. Yeah. Again, tonight we are talking about the movie Congo, directed by Frank Marshall from 1995. Vincent, what is your history with this movie?

not long not extensive when we started this podcast you mentioned it from time to time and in my mind it was always in that wheelhouse of the relic of the island of dr moreau from the 90s species we've talked about this with on both those episodes species and dr moreau how it seemed like after jurassic park in the 90s there was a there was a wave of monster movies related to genetics and science gone awry, often featuring like tropical, foreign, exotic, if you will,

lands. So I think Congo, which also is another Michael Crichton novel, is right within that wave of 90s movies that are so... That wouldn't have never been made if not for the success of Jurassic Park. Yeah, you're totally right about that. Yeah. And I think there's something very like comforting and very fun, almost kind of innocent about some of those movies, even if they have like very questionable themes sometimes.

But, you know, part of that, I think, is just like the 90s were a different era of Hollywood filmmaking than what we are in today. You know, it's not all superhero movies. It's not all CGI. I think there was maybe a little bit more imagination back then. Things weren't all rosy and great. There were some bad movies too, but it's fun to look back on that time. And a lot of it is just nostalgia too. Like I was 11 years old when Congo came out. My friends and I watched it all

the time in middle school. Shout out to my friend Chris who made a board game based on the movie Congo, which is so much fun. Yeah. So we, we loved this movie and like still reference it all the time. And almost nobody ever knows what we're talking about. Cause like, you know, nobody really remembers this movie all that much anymore. I love that, man. I, that's great because I have movies like that too. And that, that if I showed

you, you'd be like, I don't get it. Not saying that I don't get Congo, but maybe I don't have, well, not maybe I am missing that nostalgia piece. which might be important in understanding my final rating for this movie. Fair enough. But I get it. I get the appeal. Some of these lines and the way they're delivered, they're just ripe for the teenage mind to grab onto. Yeah. Absolutely. And I mean, talk about camp. This movie really puts the camp and camp kaiju. There's so much

campy humor in this movie. Most of it intentional, I would say. All right. Some of it, maybe not so much. Well, camp camp is both intentional and unintentional. Yeah, indeed. Yeah, right. It just depends. Just real quick with your you're talking about 90s, you know, like you with the lack of superhero movies, I think. Just to add on to that, I think what the what the criticism is today is that these studio movies, everything that comes out is just it's just so franchise

heavy. Like everything is part of a universe, part of a greater connection. And in the 90s and I guess just before the 2010s, you didn't have that. You just made a one off. Maybe if you made a superhero movie, it was just like a one and done thing. And now let's move on to our, our Oscar drama and let's move on to our stoner comedy, which I, you know, not saying those don't exist now, but they were more common. I feel like at the theaters. Yeah, I think so

too. And maybe looking back on things with rose colored glasses or whatever, but like, yeah, I think there was more imagination and like, even if. you know, Hollywood studios still try to, like, capitalize on, like, well -known names or, like, entities or whatever. You know, like, I think it's fair to say that Congo is a ripoff of Jurassic Park, so there's a little bit of

that to it as well. But, like, still, I find so much, like, imagination and humor and, like, you know, visual beauty in a lot of these movies, even the not great movies, that I just don't see as much in movies that come out today. But that makes me sound like just a grumpy old man. So there's a lot of good stuff today, too, you know. But I agree with you. And I think a lot of people do as well. So let us know what you think, everybody. Let us know. Yeah, indeed.

And I do love revisiting these 90s monster movies. So excited to talk about Congo with you. The Jennings family has just moved to the small town of Canaan. Oh, Ross, smell that air. Oh, God. In search of a simpler life. Want to blow up a bullfrog? Okay. It's the perfect place. Goodbye crime, goodbye grime. Except for one pesty little problem. Come with me and look at the web. The web? I have terrible fear of spiders. Come on, we live in a country now. It's time to work through

this irrational, paralyzed terror. It's not irrational. Hollywood Pictures and Amblin Entertainment present Jeff Daniels. We're in the living room. We need you to kill a spider. And John Goodman. I caused just a spider. Would anybody object if I tore this floor out? I would. False alarm, then leave on. There's no spider here. Every so often in a little town somewhere, there is a health scare. There's a rumor going around that some kind of spider might have killed Sam Metcalf. Spiders

make convenient pulp. There's no spider here. I think one of your Venezuelan spiders hitched a ride here. There may be some spiders around here that are very dangerous. Yeah, chill out. Just run. They spread out from a central nest in a web -like pattern and dominate the entire area. When that happens, this town is dead. Better record my private stock. Hollywood Pictures and Amblin Entertainment present Arachnophobia. Eight legs, two fangs, and an attitude. Perk up, Lloyd.

If we find the spider that did this, you can arrest him. Arachnophobia. A thrill -omedy. They were orphaned from childhood. Promise me you'll protect her. I promise. Best friends for life. He's playing with you. Hide and seek. You found me. Good thing Joe didn't want to play doctor. You think he's okay back there? He's doing fine. Now, after 20 years. Look at him. He won't eat. If he stays in here, he'll die. Their greatest adventure is about to begin. Oh, my God. All

right, Jose. Joe needs me. Once you meet him, you'll never forget Joe! Disney's Mighty Joe Young. Can you get him to put me down? Joe, drop him. to Jurassic Park. We've made living biological attractions so astounding that they'll capture the imagination of the entire planet. The most phenomenal discovery of our time How'd you do that? becomes the greatest adventure of all time. Can I touch it? Sure. Universal Pictures presents You feel that? Hold on to your butts. A Steven

Spielberg film. Senses of failing all over the park. Yeah, that's nice. Gotta go. An adventure. Look out! No! I can't get Jurassic Park back online. 65 million years in the making. Jurassic Park. So let's dive into the crew a little bit. The director, Frank Marshall. is probably a little bit better known as a producer. He founded Amblin Entertainment with his wife, Kathleen Kennedy, and with Steven Spielberg in 1980. Frank Marshall has produced a lot of movies by a lot of notable

directors. Spielberg, Bogdanovich, David Fincher, M. Night Shyamalan, Robert Zemeckis, many others. Some of his movies that he produced were the Indiana Jones movies, Back to the Future, and Jurassic Park. So he's kind of ripping his own... product off here a little bit. But yeah, he's a super producer for sure. But he's also directed a couple of his own movies, including a film that we've talked about in the podcast before. Do you want to talk about that movie at all,

Vincent? Well, it's your favorite movie. So I mean, it's arachnophobia, your favorite creature of the animal kingdom. Yeah. And I think arachnophobia and Congo are just so perfectly suited for comparing and contrasting. Because we had criticisms about the tone sometimes with arachnophobia, comedy versus horror. And I think that question is going to come back again even stronger with Congo for me. Again, is this a comedy or a horror film? Is it both? When is it the respective genre?

Yeah. Frank Marshall. What are you doing sometimes? Yeah. A fair question, I think. Yeah. I would say the emphasis is definitely on comedy over horror in Congo, in my opinion, but we'll talk about that more. Yeah, absolutely. The screenplay is by John Patrick Shanley, a successful screenwriter who wrote scripts for Moonstruck. That was his second screenplay, and he won the Oscar for it, as well as Joe vs. the Volcano and a couple other

movies. He's also a playwright. He's written over 23 plays, including Doubt, which was made into a movie. He also wrote the screenplay for the film adaptation of Doubt as well. So a fairly well -known name. I have to just say, this is my background as an actor. John Patrick Shanley is one of my favorite playwrights of all time. I have a number of his plays on my shelf. He has just a beautiful way of, not Doubt so much, but his other works just have like a... A beautiful

sentimentality that's also grounded. It's just like very sincere and kind of off kilter, but always grounded. And I did not know he wrote this movie until after I watched it. And I went, John Patrick Shanley, I don't think this is your genre, man. You don't find the grounded empathy so much in this movie? Not so much, but I will say it all made sense because there was an exchange between the lead character, and I forget his name, and Laura Linney, who I might have a crush

on. And the male protagonist says something about the lonely impulse of delight as his reason for pursuing this sign language experiment with the gorilla. And like the script goes off into like 30 second tangent on this poetry by Yates. And that's Shanley. And I'll catch the chase here. John Patrick Shanley has a collection of plays called A Lonely Impulse of Delight. He has a play called A Lonely Impulse of Delight. Wow.

And now I went, if I ever meet John Patrick Shanley, I'm going to tell him, sir, I watch Congo and I see what you did there. That's, I had no idea. That's amazing. I, you know, my background is not really in theater or playwrights all that much. So I love getting that insight. That's fascinating. Just such a, such a obscure Easter egg for acting nerds like me. Wow. That is so cool. Yeah. You're right. That moment's really out of place in this movie and in a good way,

I think. You know, maybe like little bits here and there where like Laura Linney has like a combative relationship with the father of her ex -fiance, who also happens to be the CEO of the company that she works for. And they have this like little conflict where he's like, go to the jungles of Africa to like find this diamond that can create this communications invention that will make us rich. the story's a little preposterous. And she's like, oh, and also find

your son's body, right? Like, aren't you interested in that too? And he's like, oh yeah, that also, but the diamond. And like, you know, it's not grounded by any means, but there's like a little bit of that character dynamic that's momentarily, it provides some conflict, you know? Maybe not at the level of John Patrick Shanley's other plays though, or plays in general. It did provide, no, it gave conflict. I don't know if it provided conflict. It's the barest semblance of a plot

device, perhaps. That's a better way to put it. All right. Fair enough. I'm being too kind to this movie, perhaps. Well, it is. We'll go on. Yeah. More on that later. It is based on a book by Michael Crichton. Of course, Crichton also wrote the book Jurassic Park and many other extremely well -known novels that eventually were turned into movies. The Andromeda Strain. Sphere, Rising Sun, many others. You know, I would say he's like kind of in the Stephen King stratosphere

of like celebrity authors. And there aren't probably too many of those. Unfortunately, there should be more of them. But he didn't really have much to do with the making of Congo, but he did write the book that it's based on. He did. Did he not have a hand in the screenplay? Well, initially he did. We'll maybe talk about this more in the production backstory. He had like the initial

idea that gave rise to the project. But in the finished version, he basically had nothing to do with the screenplay or almost anything else in the movie. Hey, great. See, John Patrick, this is on you, brother. It's all Shanley. And, you know, it is based on the Crichton book. So there's he's he had a role in that way. But yeah. Just real quick, there are some big names in the rest of the crew of the movie, so I wanted

to talk about them a little bit as well. The cinematographer is Alan Daviau, who worked with Spielberg a lot in the 80s, actually, before Spielberg started working with Janusz Kaminski pretty much all the time. He worked with Alan Daviau on E .T., The Color Purple, and Empire of the Sun. You know, pretty big names, obviously. Daviau also shot Harry and the Hendersons, Defending Your Life, and Bugsy, among some other movies. So a pretty big cinematographer in the 80s and

90s. The editor is Annie Coates. Sorry, Anne Coates. She won an Oscar for editing Lawrence of Arabia, just a little movie some of you may have heard of. She also edited such classics as The Horse's Mouth. Beckett, The Elephant Man, Out of Sight, Aaron Brockovich, and many others. Yeah, big name there. Yeah. Other big names. Sorry, go ahead. Yeah, music is by Jerry Goldsmith. We talked about him last season. He scored Gremlins. But here he is directing Congo. He has scored

over 200 films and TV programs. Just look at his Wikipedia page. As Matt, you say, a ridiculous list of well -known projects. Yeah. I started listing all of them on the Google Doc, and I was like, well, just look it up. I mean, it's an absurd list of movies and TV shows that everybody knows about. Jerry Goldsmith probably did the

music for it. It's incredible. Another big name, last big name that we'll talk about on the crew is Stan Winston, of course, an extremely well -known special effects designer and makeup designer. We've talked about him numerous times on the podcast. He had just won an Oscar for his work on Jurassic Park two years before Congo. Yeah, tries to duplicate that success here. We'll talk a little bit more about his special effects later in the episode. Yeah. For whatever that's worth.

Some big names in the cast, too. You mentioned you might have a little bit of a crush on Laura Linney. Do you want to talk about her at all? I mean, look up her Wikipedia page. No, no. I mean, I don't know her extensive work, but... My two favorite things she's in, she plays Abigail Adams in the HBO miniseries John Adams opposite Paul Giamatti. She's incredible in that. It's when I first got to know her. Got to know her. We're friends. And then she's just so much fun

in The Truman Show. Yeah. Jim Carrey's wife. Truman Show is great. She's wonderful in that movie. Yeah. She just has like a really wonderful screen presence. Like she can drop it in and be really tough as nails. While also being like having a really sweet persona, blonde, blue eyes, kind of a, you know, a gentle face. But if you cross her again, she can be very tough as nails. So she kind of brings that same energy here. She plays Karen Ross, a communications expert.

Yeah. So here she is doing her thing. Yeah. I really love her performance in You Can Count on Me, which is from the early 2000s. Mark Ruffalo is in that movie as well. Kind of a quiet, slow -paced drama, like a family drama. But she's really incredible, as is Mark Ruffalo. Very, very good movie. She's really good in Kinsey. She's great in a lot of stuff. Excuse me. Sorry. Well, that's all right. The cast also features

Dylan Walsh as primatologist Peter Elliott. He's kind of well -known from Nip Tuck, the TV show. I feel like maybe he didn't have as huge of a film career as some of the other names in this

cast, but here he is in Congo. I feel like my favorite performance in this movie, I don't know how you feel about this, but Ernie Hudson plays Captain Monroe Kelly, who's kind of like the adventurer who leads this motley crew of scientists congolese jungle and he's great he's very charismatic in this movie two things another another nerd alert here for theater folks but also we have a minnesota alert ernie hudson did live in minneapolis for a spell in the 70s i believe and here is

some twin cities theater lore you ready so those of you don't know In Minneapolis, there is a very well -known community theater called Theater in the Round Players. I think they're in their 80 -something season. So they've been around for almost a century. Now, they are community theater. They're in the heart of the city, surrounded by a number of for -profit theaters. But they are community theater, which means they do not

pay their actors. For right or wrong, that's just the way community theater works, right? Ernie Hudson was in a play. at Theater on the Round in the 1970s called The Great White Hope, which is a play from the 70s. It's a boxing drama. And yes, he does refer to himself as the Great White Hope in Congo as well. So, John Patrick Stanley, I see you again. In the Twin Cities theater lore, Ernie Hudson is the only actor to have ever been paid at Theater on the Round.

Because he was cast and then he said, no, I'm going to quit unless you pay me. And he was just a nobody actor. He was just trying to support his family in Minneapolis. And apparently Theater in the Round acquiesced and gave him money. So when I moved to the Twin Cities as an actor, I heard this story. Ernie Hudson's the only actor to get paid at Theater in the Round. That's amazing. Money well spent. I mean, I'm sure he was he was deserving of it, you know? Absolutely. He's

so much fun. Ghostbusters aside. I mean, again, he just brings a very sincere warmth, I think, to his performances. Yeah, I think he's clearly having fun in the role. He actually said it in an interview that this was his favorite role that he ever played in a movie anyway, which is surprising. I think. Yeah, because, you know, I mean, he's been in other better movies and TV shows, but I mean, he's clearly having fun here and it's a lot of fun to watch him in this

movie. Yeah, yeah. And I will talk about this more, but and you alluded to this, Vincent, but like the character type that he's playing is like the great white hunter who like ventures into the jungles of, you know, Africa and like conquers nature and like is more powerful than everybody else. And like. I feel like Ernie Hudson knows the power and the kind of intentionality

of like having him play this role. I think the role, the line that you alluded to, he says like, I'm the great white hunter who also happens to be black. And it's just, it's one of the more, it's not like brilliant or anything, but it's one of the more clever lines in the movie, I would say. Yeah. And along those lines, they come across a group of natives in the jungle and they. The natives are taken aback that the leader of the expedition is Ernie Hudson, a black

man. And Hudson says to the white members of his crew, he says, they're laughing because the leaders are usually white. And they didn't believe that I would be leading you all. Again, I don't think it's like the most profound line, but I do think it is more clever than a lot of other lines in this movie. Yeah, that's a backhanded compliment. But yeah, I would agree with that.

No, you're right. I think the movie is at least aware of some of those tropes and tries very lazily to like subvert them a little bit, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's good. And yeah, Ernie Hudson is a delight to see in this movie. Yeah, for sure. Lots of other big names in the cast as well. Maybe we'll just kind of blaze through the rest of these real quick. Tim Curry, the legendary Tim Curry, stars as Herkimer Homolka, which is maybe my favorite character name of

all time. Really love that name, Herkimer Homolka. Tim Curry's great in this movie. You have Joe Don Baker as the CEO of Travacom. I know him most of all from several different James Bond movies. He's always a fun presence. Do you want to talk about a couple of the actors here as well? Sure. I just want to say Tim Curry, I don't know, maybe to a generation best known for Home Alone 2, Lost in New York. But no, more importantly, his role as Dr. Frankenfurter in the Rocky Horror

Picture Show is iconic. And if you haven't seen that movie, it is also celebrating its 50th anniversary this year and is just an iconic piece of filmmaking. So plug there for that. Yeah, that's a good point. My favorite Tim Curry performance is as the devil in the movie Legend by Ridley Scott. I actually really love that movie. My favorite Ridley Scott movie, maybe except for Alien. But Legend is awesome. And Tim Curry is so cool in that movie. Yeah, big Curry fan there. What are we talking

about? We're talking about Delroy Lindo as Captain Wanta. Uncredited for some reason, but the same year he also starred in the excellent Spike Lee movie Clockers. We have Joe Pantoliono. He was in The Fugitive, Bad Boys, The Matrix. Oh, that's right. Baby's Day Out. Don't forget. I was going to put that on here and then I was like, why would I put that on here? Who cares about that movie? Apparently I was wrong. Sorry, Vincent. Who cares about Baby's Day? Who cares about The

Matrix? No. Come on. I just want. Sorry, I hit a nerve there. No, I like The Matrix. I just revisited it. And yeah, he's really. He's really a villain, like dastardly in that movie, like in a bad way. He's like, he's a bad, he's a bad man. He plays a good weasel. Yeah, he does. That's the word. Great weasel. Also small roles for John Hawks. I don't know how to pronounce this name. Yeah. Who's well known from a lot of TV shows like Lost and Oz and some other shows.

He has a small role here. Yeah. Long time stage actor as well. I was a big Lost fan in the day, so I recognized him and was a fan. But Bruce Campbell, we have yet to talk about it. This is our first Bruce Campbell movie on Camp Kaiju. Wow. I guess you're right. Weird. I guess it might have been better for a different Bruce Campbell movie to be our first one that we talk about on Camp Kaiju. But it's, yeah, we might have briefly mentioned his name before. He has

a small cameo at the beginning. And I feel like that's kind of just like throwing a bone to the monster movie fans, the horror fans in the audience, you know, to see him right away. Yeah, yeah. Horror icon. The Evil Dead series. He's in an offbeat movie called Bubba Hotep. He's just he's he's a legend in his own time. And he's I actually follow him on Instagram or some like official Bruce Campbell account. But he's always talking at conventions about these movies and about Hollywood.

And, you know, I think I think he also has some insight because like he never made it as an A -lister. He's very well suited for these types of supporting roles that you see in Congo. Where he's a little goofy, he's a little charming, but he's also a hunk, you know? So he's not, yeah, like he looks like a leading man, but he has the energy of a supporting player. That's

a great way to put it, yeah. I feel like the Evil Dead movies were really perfect for him because like they just suit, like the sense of humor in those movies suits his. persona so well. Those are the only movies where he could play the lead and get away with it. In Congo, he auditioned for the Dylan Walsh character, the primatologist, who's the main male lead in the movie. He was not cast in that role, but he did have this two

-minute cameo at the beginning. For a movie like this, that's probably the ideal usage for him. At the same time, and this is me jumping ahead a little bit, I feel like the actor who plays Peter, Dylan Walsh. I feel like he, unfortunately, is forgettable amidst this ensemble of either kooky characters like Tim Curry, like Ernie Hudson. Laura Linney's not kooky, but she has tremendous screen presence. And I feel like Dylan Walsh just kind of gets lost. I mean, he's certainly

upstaged by his gorilla. yeah which is hilarious so so i don't know i don't know maybe maybe for me bruce campbell in that role while he would have been over the top maybe that's the energy i i wanted more of from this character the dylan wall yeah i think that's fair his character the dylan walsh character is very bland and forgettable in this movie i think he's kind of meant to be like the emotional anchor a little bit like he has this very sincere relationship with amy the

gorilla that he communicates with and has this kind of father -daughter relationship with almost but yeah i mean it's just kind of boring and like with everything else going on it's like who cares about this guy let's get back to like the killer apes you know yeah so i agree with you yeah but if bruce campbell had played that role it almost might have been like too much like everything in this movie would have been like over the top you know i also agree with

that statement so i don't know man I would like to see that version of this movie. It probably would have been pretty awesome. We'll never know. I did just want to mention real quick that there is also a team of actors in the creature suits playing Amy the gorilla and the other gorillas as well. So it's not purely animatronic. Some of them are actors in suits. And I think it comes off pretty well. I do too. Great special effects. And something that today would be CGI. Yeah.

And I think you lose something. the tangibility going the computer route. Exactly. Yep. I, I've, you know, made my opinions about that clear many times on Camp Kaiju, but I, this, this movie reminds me of that again. And like, you know, I see the CGI and like Godzilla X Kong, whatever the full title of that movie is. And it's like, yeah, give me an actor in a suit over CGI any day. Yeah. In my day. Yeah. I'll, I'll leave

it at that. So diving into the production backstory of the film a little bit, as I mentioned earlier, Michael Crichton did come up with the idea for Congo. It actually started with a movie from 1978 called The First Great Train Robbery that Crichton wrote and directed, and it was based on his own novel. So he played a major role in that movie. Sean Connery was in that one. That movie did pretty well, so Crichton wanted to work with Sean Connery again. He came up with

an idea to kind of update. King Solomon's Mines, the 1885 novel for a modern setting. And he wanted Connery to play this kind of great white hunter inspired by the Alan Quartermain character from that book. Creighton also said he was interested in new sign language communication techniques used with primates around that time. So that was where the genesis of the idea first came from in the late 1970s. He actually did pitch that idea to 20th Century Fox, and they wanted

to make it. They were ready to give him the money, especially with Sean Connery attached. But they would not let Crichton use an actual gorilla in the role of Amy. And that apparently was a deal breaker for Crichton. So he was like, nope, not going to do it. If I can't have a real gorilla, I'm out of this project. So he did step away. He did write the book Congo, which was published in 1980. seems like kind of a weird hell to die

on to me. I know it was the late seventies slash early eighties, but you know, you had movies like King Kong, you had like special effects was like advancing pretty rapidly at the time. So it just seems weird to me that he would step away for that reason. It does. Does he, I mean, we'll get into this. I will get into this with some of my criticisms later on, but I, you know, a real gorilla might not be the. Easiest animal

to handle on set, Michael Crichton. Yeah. There might be a reason they're not used in movies. I don't know. I'm not trying to make fun of Michael Crichton, but it's like... I feel like he was just like, oh, it'll be fine. I can do it. I've never worked with gorillas before, but I'm a movie director. I can do anything like I. Yeah, like I feel like the studio might have made the right decision in that case. Almost definitely. Yeah. Yeah. Well, well, Michael Crichton turns

out all right in the end. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. He's doing OK for himself. 20th Century Fox did still want to move ahead with the production of the film, though. Steven Spielberg and John Carpenter were both attached to direct very briefly in the early 80s, but those plans kind of fell apart and it just never really got off the ground in the 80s. Yeah. Do you want to talk a little bit about the production after Frank Marshall got

on board? Sure. Frank Marshall revitalized the projects in the 1990s, perhaps inspired by the success of Jurassic Park. And although Crichton was publicized as the film's co -writer, he had little to no involvement with it. Filming took place mostly in California, with limited footage shot in Costa Rica, Tanzania, Kenya, and Uganda. Stan Winston's team designed the suits and animatronics for Amy, the gray gorillas, a .k .a. those mutant...

No, they're not mutant gorillas so much, but they're the bloodthirsty, vicious gorillas at the end. And the hippopotamus! Yeah, their boats get attacked by hippos, which is a wild scene, and the hippos are all puppets or animatronics, which is fun. I've never seen hippos attack in

a movie before. Yeah, it's a cool scene. It takes place at night, and they're trying to cross a river, so it's hard to tell what's going on, and I feel like maybe that's too... cover up the special effects a little bit, but like it still works pretty well. Yeah. Yeah. It's a fun moment of action. Now, however, Stan Winston did regret giving Amy the quote cuter features of a lowland gorilla rather than the mountain

gorilla that she was supposed to be. And Matt, you've added a source that provides interesting info about Amy's design. So you all listeners can check that out in the show notes. Yeah, and that source will be, or it is like, it's from Stan Winston's website, like his company's website. And it goes into a lot of detail about the special effects in the movie. So pretty fascinating. We don't really have time to cover all that in the episode, but check out that resource if you

want to take a look. Sweet. But the thing about Stan Winston regretting giving Amy... like the cuter features of a lowland gorilla instead of a mountain gorilla. He was like, I was probably a mistake because it like, you know, took away from the realism of the movie, which I just think is a really hilarious quote. Like that's not what's taking away from the realism of this movie, Stan Winston. Like nobody really cares if it looks like a lowland gorilla or a mountain gorilla.

And I'm being a little, a little sarcastic right now, but like this movie is not going for realism, you know? Well, that's very true. I gotta be honest. I couldn't, I could not tell a lowland gorilla from a mountain gorilla. You, I watched this movie and I see gorillas. Right. And I don't think anybody would watch this movie and be like, you know, I was convinced I was on board the entire time, except that gorilla Amy did not

look like a mountain gorilla. I don't think anybody would have had that thought, but Stan Winston apparently did. Yeah. Which is why, I mean, that's, that's great. He's like all about realism and perfection. And that's what a film artist should be, you know? But then again, I'm sure Jane Goodall saw this movie and immediately knew the difference. You might be right about that. I hope she did see this movie. I would be fascinated to hear her thoughts about it. Maybe she loves it. She's

like a secret fan of trashy ape movies. Yeah. I would be delighted if that were the case. I hope that is true. Oh, man. We're having a little fun with this movie, and that's maybe not too surprising because this movie was kind of critically reviled when it came out. It got pretty bad reviews. A lot of critics, you know, attacked the thin characters, the cheesy special effects, the unoriginality in some of the camp humor, which I personally am okay with. But yeah, this movie got a lot

of bad reviews. It was nominated for seven Razzies or Golden Raspberry Awards, which celebrate or dishonor the worst movies of the year. So critically, it did not do too well. So even though Congo was not a critical success, it was surprisingly a commercial success. It grossed $24 .6 million in its first weekend. It was the number one film at the box office that weekend. Far exceeding expectations. Ultimately grossed about $152 million against a $50 million budget. So commercial success

way beyond what the studio expected. A lot of that had to do with all the kind of promotional tie -ins that Congo had. They had marketing deals with Taco Bell and Pepsi. There was a 1996 Sega game that came out based on the movie, a computer game, even a pinball machine game that came out as a tie -in to Congo. So yeah, not a critical success, but commercially, in terms of marketing

promotions, huge success. Which I... love, no matter how I feel about this movie, this is the type of movie I love talking about on Camp Kaiju, where it was a hit in its day, and 30 years later, is it worth still watching, talking about? Does it stand the test of time? We will find out. You and I will give our expert opinions on Congo. Oh yeah, we will indeed. I'm already starting to sense they might diverge a little bit, but that's quite alright. Roger Ebert, Gave this

high marks. Did you read that? I did. Yeah. Three out of four. So like relatively high, higher than most other critics. And so much higher than he usually gives these types of movies. Yeah. I feel like he did sometimes like kind of cheesy popcorn entertainment, but yeah, usually if they're this, this ridiculous, he doesn't, doesn't usually like them all that much. Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, I feel compelled to say that this movie does have a little bit of a cult following now.

Some recent reviews have been a little bit more positive. There's a writer for the A .V. Club, which doesn't exist anymore, sadly, but his name is Ignaty Vishnevetsky, and he had a really positive review of the movie Congo. The A .V. Club used to have this series where they would, like, revisit notorious bombs back in the day, and he gave this one a good review, and he said, I'll just call out one line of his review. He said, is Congo a good film? It's certainly a good time.

And that's like an obvious thing to say, but I love it. That kind of speaks to the, to why I like this movie so much as well. Cool. Cool. Yeah. Bit of a cold movie. Maybe. Awesome. I remember talking in our ever a conversation about, you know, tastes and what we enjoy is so individualistic because some people love ever a horror of the deep. We do not. And you know, that's, that's what art is. And especially pop art, you know, can be that divisive. And I think that's, that's

a wonderful thing. Absolutely. It's subjective. And that's why people should feel strongly about the movies they love or hate, but you know, preferably the movies they love. Yeah. I just want to add that, you know, I was watching Congo and I was thinking, I feel like the nineties were a big time for ape monkey movies. Hmm. How do you feel about that statement? Yep. There was mighty Joe young. Let me go through a list for you. Yeah.

First of all, there's George of the jungle, which features ape or actors in ape costumes, right? You had Dunstan checks in. You had. Movies called Monkey Trouble, Monkey Business. There's a movie called Ed with Matt LeBlanc. It looks like a baseball movie with a chimpanzee. I'm not saying these were like wide released films, but I've heard of some of these. Summer of the Monkeys from 1998. I think it was a thing. Yeah, that's

a good point. Now that you mention it, George of the Jungle, Ed, I definitely remember those. Mighty Joe Young, like I said. Why do you think that is? Was there something? I don't know. Something socially? Politically or in the air? I don't know. I feel like in the 80s, you had an explosion of body horror films. I feel like because the technology now allowed you to make those effects. So maybe by the 90s, ape acting. In suits and puppetry and animatronics, we're just at a point

where, you know, we could do this. We could bring apes and gorillas to the screen, believably. Yeah. I think you're probably right that it's mostly about the special effects and just like seeing what they could accomplish with like the new technologies and stuff. But it is fascinating. I mean, there was kind of a first wave of ape movies and like. The late 1920s and 1930s, King Kong obviously being the most obvious example.

And there, you know, that reflects some like pretty bad social and racial like worldviews at the time, just about like civilization and like the allure of the jungle and exoticism and stuff like that. But you wouldn't think that that would come back so prevalently in the 1990s. I don't know if that would be why. Yeah, I don't know. I'm going to have to think about that more. You have a book. How's that book? Yeah, I've

just leafed through it. And it's very much about those older movies from the 20s and 30s, maybe some from the 40s too. And it goes into those pretty toxic and harmful tropes about race and gender and humans versus animals, some of those themes that were... unfortunately pretty popular at the time for like, you know, not great reasons. So it's a fascinating book. And now I'm just, my mind is running circles trying to think about why and how that might recur in the 1990s. But

maybe it's just a special. I don't know. I think we can put a pin in it because we are also talking about a baseball movie with Matt LeBlanc and a chimney. They're like, you know. which speaks volumes about society and politics. Class. I'm just going to get into America. Yeah, exactly. I mean, if anybody out there wants to send us your thoughts on that, please let us know because I would love to read that. Oh, man. Yeah, that's great. And so, so, so niche. Yeah. That's what

we're about here. Yeah. Yeah. On that note. Camp Kaiju is sponsored by Zach Linder and the Zach Pack, powered by Coldwell Banker Realty. Your source for real estate, home rehab, fixing and flipping for investor clients and residential buyers. Reach out to the Zach Pack today for real estate services. Follow the Zach Pack on social media and contact the Zach Pack for investment opportunities. Link in the show notes. Vincent, how is Mimi's mailbox looking today? Cool. And

you know what? I'm going to read more than just one comment today because in response to our episode on Eberra, in response to our season five part two announcements on Instagram, I just had some great comments that I wanted to share. Just share the love. First off, we have Mart Kingsley and Mart Kingsley comments. Great episode. Looking forward to the upcoming titles. Some interesting choices. So I love that. Yeah. Yeah. We have Don, super fan Don, comments, great episode,

helping me get through working today. We appreciate that. Yeah, for sure. We have Beth, our guest host and friend of the pod, founder of Godzilla Days in Bloomington, Indiana. She says, it was so much fun to talk post -GFest with you guys. Maybe we can talk Pulgasari next. And Pulgasari is a North Korean kaiju film, which in and of itself, that's worthy of a conversation right

there. Yes, that's a great idea. Yeah. And then Podcast Buddies from Monster Candy Podcast says, Matt totally chose one of my next movie picks, Humanoids from the Deep. Oh. It's my fave of the Corman produced films. Yin's gonna dig it. All right. To be determined. I'm still kind of waffling on that choice a little bit. Honestly, I might be a little scared to watch it, but all right. I think that comment might mean that we

have to bring it back. We'll see. Yeah. Well, like you said, Matt, I fully support your TBD on that one, but got to watch it for yourself and then you can make a call. Totally. It's never a good idea to judge a movie before you watch it. So more to come on that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I got to tell you about Peter Lorre here. He is reviewing a movie, a Golden Age ape movie starring Bela Lugosa called The Ape Man from

1943. Mr. Lugosi plays a scientist who, through some sort of science gone awry, injects himself with an ape serum and turns into an ape man. Whoa. That sounds great. That sounds, it's perfect for Congo. Lined up perfectly. Thank Mr. Laurie for that work. I know he is in a bit of a jam dealing with this lilac. My mental connection, my telepathic connection is beeping danger signals right now. Can you do anything to help him? Can you get into that room? Is it still locked? It

is still locked, yeah. I mean, I can do something to help him. Do I want to? That's another question. I don't know. But I feel I can already see like the petals and like the tendrils of the lilac like creeping out of the door. So I'm a little freaked out. I don't know if I want to go in there right now. But, you know, I don't need a telepathic connection to know that he's in danger. So I might check on him after this episode just to make sure. Okay. Okay. We'll check back.

Next time, to see how he's doing, how you're doing, the world might be in danger. You're next, everybody. You're next. Look out for that lilac, yeah. While I'm in there, I'll ask Mr. Laurie if he has any thoughts about why there are so many monkey movies in the 1990s. He probably has some thoughts on that. Might have. Yeah, he might have. We'll see. But he might be also too busy trying to escape from the constricting limbs of the lilac. So we'll see. We'll see how

he's doing. Yeah, just bring your machete in there with you. Yeah, exactly. Well, awesome. I can't wait to hear Mr. Laurie's thoughts on that. Hopefully he's still alive. We'll find out. Welcome to the Poverty Row Studios on the other side of Hollywood. Where the stars were dimmer and the red carpets dripped with blood. Together we will watch the best of the worst. Movies known for their limited budgets, outlandish

concepts, and questionable performances. But with enough haunted houses, zombies, ape men, and devil bats to keep you up at night. This is the Poverty Row Picture Show, and I dare you to sleep through these nightmares. Hello there. I am Peter Lorre, and I have but minutes to live. As you can hear, I am in a little bit of a pickle. You see, my fiendish friend, my botanical buddy, my platonic plant, my lilac, has turned on me. Oh, and it is currently squeezing me to death.

But damn it all to hell if I do not continue reviewing these poverty row movies. If I am to go out, I can think of no better way than discussing The Ape Man whilst being munched on by a monster flower. Here we go. The Ape Man stars... Bela Lugosi and was shot within a week at Monogram Studios. The story is rather derivative. A scientist injects himself with spinal fluid from a gorilla and what you know he turns into an ape himself. And of course the cure lies in the spinal fluid

of regular old human beings. Thus begins the murder spree as Lugosi preys on the innocent with the help of his sidekick, an actual gorilla. Now, this gorilla was a costuming portrayed by veteran ape actor Emil Van Horn. Sunshine Sammy Morris, for what it's worth of the East End kids, also makes an appearance. Now, if the above sounds like Monogram's previous film called The Ape with Boris Karloff, you would be on the money. Look, if you've got the gorilla costume, you

might as well use it. And as Matthew and Vincent discussed, such pictures were popular at this time. I do not know anything about the 1990s, however, to venture a guess about that decade's interest in cinematic simians. Now, despite the predictable story, The Ape Man is not a terrible movie, all things considered. Mr. Lugosi, ever the professional, gives it his all. God bless

that man. It is interesting to note that Legosi's previous gig was playing the Frankenstein monster in Universal's Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman. However, Universal did not call him back for their next project, Son of Dracula. Ironic, eh? Well, the Universal brass shared little of the respect Monogram had for Legosi. However hammy he may be in these movies, They are made that much more enjoyable with this presence. So seek out the ape man. And if I survive my present

ordeal, I'd love to hear from you. Oh, that's the spot. That one didn't feel too bad. Nope. No. No, that one hurt. Here it is, listeners. I face the deep, dark depths. Of the Lilacs Maw. And before I get eaten. We'll see you next week. For Sunshine Sammy Morris. And those other East End kids. In a 1943 movie called Ghosts. On the loose. At practice. I was an ace. I couldn't

miss. but in the game tell me you ain't gonna throw the curve tip ain't gonna throw the curve tip things are going from bad to worse a little word to the wise you choke you croak until someone came along i'm supposed to pick up a ball player to lend me a hand meet ed sullivan you can catch He's a ball player. Ball players get traded. I'm going to bring him home. From Universal Pictures. He is not one that monkey in this game. Comes the story of two ball players who share one dream.

There's one. And one very small apartment. Not my bathroom. Don't you do it. Friends, Matt LeBlanc. Bad monkey. Back to Congo. Are there any themes in this movie? I don't know if there are. It's not the deepest movie in the world. Well, you have some great ones there. I do see. I'm going to just look at my notes real quick. Themes of belonging. A search for home. Amy the gorilla. You know, the whole, this whole, the whole inciting incident of this movie is Peter. Is he a doctor?

Is he a scientist? I was actually unclear about his role. He's a scientist. He's a primatologist. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent. He is a, he is a doctor too. I remember that he introduced himself, but he has Amy who can communicate through sign language and then through a machine verbally. But Amy is longing for the Congo to get back to her home because she was, she's been in captivity for so long. So that in and of itself is a theme, the captivity of

animals for scientific research. But but the inciting incident then is Peter gets a team together to take Amy back to the Congo. Yeah. Yeah. And there is, you know, not provide too many spoilers, but there's pretty touching or it's supposed to be touching ending where, you know, Amy ends up in her rightful place at the end of the movie. And I think that kind of conveys that theme. I do, too. Yeah, that was that was nicely done.

Yeah. Yeah. I think kind of along those lines, maybe there's like a little bit of a theme about humans and animals like interacting, not just communicating, but also like power dynamics between human beings and animals. You know, like the gray killer apes came to be because many, many years ago, like an ancient tribe found this mine, like a diamond mine filled with all these riches. And then they bred. These gorillas to be extremely violent and aggressive and just attack anybody

that came near them. And then, of course, the apes turned on their masters. And that's how this kind of secretive race of primates came to be. And I don't think there's really all that much depth to that. I think it's just like we need a plot contrivance to like explain what these things are. But there's a little bit of like, you know, humans thought they could control nature. And then, of course. nature rises up to, to bite them in the ass essentially, which

is kind of a theme of Jurassic park too. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. So not original, but there at least a movie like this, you know, the genre just feeds on itself. So I'm not going to dock it points for that quote unquote on originality. Yeah. But is it, is it executed to the level of something else? That's. That's something I'll get into in my breakdown later. Yeah. Fair question. And the answer is probably no, but we'll find

out more soon. And I do think one of the major questions of the movie, not necessarily like an intentional theme, but, you know, what are we supposed to feel about the racial dynamics in this movie? Like, is it racist, essentially? And that's, you know, that question's a little

bit too easy and glib. I don't, you know, it's a hard question to answer, but like we already talked about how the Ernie Hudson character is meant to like flip some of those outdated tropes on their head, like the great white hunter, like in this case is a black man who's leading all of these white people into the jungle who are pretty much inept, pretty much powerless if it weren't for him. So there's that little bit of

like subversion there. And yet at the same time, You have depictions of, like, all these white Americans landing in Uganda. And, like, immediately, as soon as they step off the plane, like, entering into a civil war with, like, explosions and shootouts. And then they have to pay off this warlord to, like, get into the jungle. And you have, like, one of the warlords, like, henchmen, like, fondling

Laura Linney's blonde hair. And it's like, how can the movie be, like, aware of these tropes and yet, like, play into them at the same time, you know? Yeah. And I think the idea of the great white hunter, that exoticism, I mean, this is a topic of interest that I'm actually really

interested in. And you go back to the Tarzan novels from the early 20th century, but the 1800s, Europe's fascination with dark Africa, the heart of darkness, and this depiction that still lives in our, I think, general mental construct as... In the Western world, white Westerners, we view the middle of Africa as this foreboding, dark place full of unknowns. And the people who live there are not as civilized and cultured, quote

unquote. So I think, and so along those lines, I did read that Michael Crichton wanted to write such a pulpy story. Well, the trade -off for that is, those pulp stories like Tarzan and others were written in another time. Right. All those stereotypes and tropes were based on a world construct that was very structured, stratified whites versus everyone else. So you have a really hell of a time trying to update that. Those conceits and tropes for a modern audience in the 90s is

modern enough to know better. Right. So I think it's just a tricky line. I'm not saying it can't be done. I think there are modern examples like Kong Skull Island. They depict the natives as

actual real people instead of monsters. But it's a tricky... subject that i think you just have to be uber aware of and i don't think michael crichton or frank marshall is they're not interested in it they're just like temple of doom route let's just go for the pulp people of color you're you're not people you're not fleshed out characters you're just here to serve the pulpy adventure yeah you're like well does that pass muster these days who knows Yeah, probably not anymore, or

at least it probably shouldn't, you know, and I think there are some other movies from the 90s that, you know, like The Mummy, which we talked about in the late 90s, I think kind of does a similar thing. Island of Dr. Moreau, which we talked about kind of does a similar thing where it's like, you know, if those movies and Congo had been a little bit more like ambitious

or sensitive, respectful, like maybe. it would have gone into more depth about any of the characters of color or like what's actually going on in the civil war in Uganda. Like what, what actually is the context of that? But like, yeah, these movies are not interested in that kind of like, you know, depth and complexity at all. Right. Right. So it's a product of it's it's genre, which has all the trappings I just mentioned. So yeah. Yeah. So definitely, definitely justified

to bring all that up. Yeah. Yeah. I think in a movie like this, you kind of have to ask that question. And I think like, you know, if the creative team, if the director or the writer, you know, if any of them were artists of color, that might have helped a little bit to like lend a certain perspective and a certain depth to this portrayal. But and, you know, I think. Nowadays, if this movie was made, that almost certainly would happen. And I think that would be a great

thing. But like, yeah, this movie does not achieve that for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Anything to talk about with the form and the aesthetic or any other themes that you wanted to bring up? So Matt has a great point here. Other lines of dialogue refer to the killer ape cliche, referring specifically to King Kong, which is mentioned in the screenplay, and the idea that gorillas

are dangerous. And Matt, as you say, though, that idea has larger racial connotations, which taps into exactly what we were talking about. Those golden age gorilla pictures from the 20s, 30s and 40s. And you know what? That's such a niche genre that I don't blame Marshall or John Patrick Shanley or Crichton for not maybe not even realizing what they were, the tradition

they were inadvertently. tapping into yeah like like king kong's a perfect example because king kong fits within that narrative of killer apes lusting after white women we don't ever think about king kong like that and yet you dig not too far and it it is exactly within that that racial context the the the the weaponized racial context that white america put black black people in. Yeah. Oh yeah. I don't, I don't think Congo even realizes what it's perpetuating. Yeah. I

think you're right. Yeah. I mean, You know, I love a lot of Spielberg movies, but I feel like with the Indiana Jones movies, for example, you raise the point of Temple of Doom. Like, you know, I think Spielberg and the producer George Lucas, like, wanted to, like, make their version of a 40s adventure serial. They did not go any deeper than that. Like, they weren't trying to, like, expose the deeper, like, social contexts

of it, you know, or subtexts or whatever. And it might have been nice if they had done so a little bit more, but, like, not but. And, like... You know, I mean, they were just trying to make their version of the movies that they loved as a kid. And like, you know, I that's not to let them off the hook. They shouldn't get a free pass like they should investigate some of those themes a little bit more. But I think you're totally right that Congo is doing the same thing.

Yeah. And I agree with you. I don't fault them for doing that because I also admittedly not the like overtly racist garbage that was produced by some of these Hollywood studios. But I do love King Kong. And I do love Tarzan. And I do love these action movies. I love Temple of Doom. So sue me, people. No, same. I mean, that's the horror movie of the Indiana Jones trilogy. And I kind of love it for that reason, you know?

Yeah, yeah. Even though there's a lot. I love this stuff while also recognizing some question marks. Exactly. And that's, you know, I mean. You have to recognize both like the good things about it and the bad things about it. And that's why movies are complicated. Like they're social texts, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Fun to talk about. Ooh, here we go. Okay. So our breakdowns, the good, the bad, and the campy. Well, let's start with the good. Yeah. All right. You can, you

can start, you can lead off here. I, yeah, there's. Legitimately, a lot I like about this movie. I feel like it has a great sense of visual imagination. I think when we do finally encounter the lost city of Zinj, it looks really fun, in kind of like an amusement park way, but that's not necessarily a criticism. I think that's what the movie is going for. There's also a really good scene where the whole... crew is camping out and they have all these kind of like lasers set up and like

automatic sentry guns. And that's like the first time they're really attacked by the gray killer ape gorillas. And that scene looks fantastic. It's beautifully lit, beautifully shot, really exciting. I love the camp humor in this movie. I think Tim Curry and Ernie Hudson, especially like do a great job of delivering that. And I feel like most of that dialogue is intentionally supposed to be funny. And some dialogue is just

bad. There's no doubt about that. But like a lot of it, I think, is intentionally comedic. I mean, it's really entertaining. It's yeah, I don't know. And like, I will admit nostalgia does play a big role for me and how much I like this movie. But I don't know. It has a lot of imagination, a lot of humor. It's it's not boring for a second. Hmm. Yeah, I I first of all, I think nostalgia is a valid reason to. to, to

enjoy anything. So I wish I had it with this movie, but I did like a lot about this movie. I loved the cast aside from Dylan Walsh. I actually liked the cast a lot. Like these, these are, these aren't mega star actors, right? But they, they bring what they, that intangible something to, to the screen. Tim Curry, Ernie Hudson, Laura Linney, all the supporting cast. I love Amy and shout out again to the actors who portrayed the apes, but Amy is portrayed as a toddler in this

movie. And as someone who has a one and a half year old right now, it was so real. Like it was on the nose, the, how petty Amy is. And she gets jealous. She throws things at Laura Linney and calls her names and just like, I'm like, yeah, that's what a toddler does. Throws little temper tantrums when they don't get their martinis. No, when they don't get what they want. So yeah, I enjoyed that portrayal of Amy. Yeah, I love, this is the campy thing that I love because it's

so ridiculous. I don't know if it works, but who cares? The fact that we have a laser gun and we're slicing these gorillas in half. All while a volcano is erupting and there's a river of lava. I'm like, yeah, this jumped the shark in so many ways. And I love that. I love, I wish movies would be more as, as bold as that sometimes. Cause that's what you remember. Yeah. All right. Awesome. So there's, you know, you like, you like some stuff in it. That's good. I like to

hear. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. I feel like you're going to have more stuff in the bad category than I am. So, you know, I do wish if this had been like a truly remarkable movie, it would have like questioned some of those racial tropes a little bit more. It would have like set this movie in like a recognizable real world where like the supporting characters are like real people and not just like exotic background, you know, pray for the gorillas to attack. So I would

have loved to have seen that. I'm just going to leave it at that for the bad for me. Yeah. Okay. Great. Do I have the floor? Sorry. I'm going to try to, I'm going to try to be, you know, as professional as possible. Right. Cause I think is this movie easy to pick apart? Yes. Can I try to be as, as precise as possible? I will try. First of all, I think the problems start with the script, but not even that. I feel

like. You can have wonky and wooden dialogue, but the actors, I don't think they are, they are really, they're phoning in it. I think Laura Linney has, she, her, like her character is given moments of, of, of demanding real emotion. Like her fiance has been killed and I can see Laura Linney. I can see her eye, like behind her eyes. She's thinking, I know I need to cry here. And she can't, she's just not even like, she doesn't cry when she's supposed to. And she just acts.

So it's just like very phoned in and wooden much of the time, especially with her. Cause she's supposed to be such an emotional anchor. She, for example, she finds the carcass of her fiance on a pile of bones and we get nothing. And Frank Marshall's not interested. He just cuts away. Cause it's just a plot point at that point. And I'm like, yo, this should be, a really serious moment. You're right that the movie doesn't have

any interest in that. And like that, that is probably a flaw, but it's also like, let's get onto like the slicing apart monkeys with a laser, you know? Right, right. So my direction then, if I were the director, cause I think, I think a huge role of the director of a movie is the tone, right? So what is the tone of this movie? If you're not going to invest in the emotional moments, That's fine. You need to tell Laura Linney to stop trying so hard then. You need

the actors on board then with that. Now, Tim Curry, he's fully on board with the tone of this movie. So much so that he's in his own movie. He's like a Romanian circus carnival guy who comes in. I'm like, I love it. I'm here for it. But it's inconsistent with the rest. With what other people are doing, I should say. What other actors are doing. Yeah. The accent's not great. But I can forgive it because Tim Curry knows the assignment. Yo. Ernie Hudson's accent is

not great. He's doing a British thing. And sometimes he slips into just Ernie Hudson from Ghostbusters. I'm like, yeah, man, I don't know. Cut the accent or just make it wildly over the top. See, I got really specific notes here. Dylan Walsh as Peter. You mentioned he's supposed to be like an anchor of this film. Yeah. There's a stretch of this movie where every one of his lines is something like, what's going on? Who's that? Where are we? Yeah. Look, you can be the stand in for the

audience, but this is so lazy. Yeah. And I think in a couple of those instances, like other characters' responses are, I don't know, over and over again. And it's like, you could have cut all that out of the movie. We didn't need any of that. If you don't know, then what purpose does that serve, you know? And I love in a movie, and this is funny, this is funny, this can't be, when unintentionally in a movie where your hero is in the middle of nowhere and he says, I'm out of here. I can't

do this. I can't go any further. And that's what he does. And Ernie Hudson's like, where are you going to go? Like you're in the middle of the jungle. And I'm like, yeah, you're this doctor. The supposed man of intellect is unbelievably clueless in my, in my estimation. Yeah. But then you're totally right. And, but then I do kind of like how Ernie said, like you just said, Ernie Hudson is like. you dumbass, where are you going to go? Like he's, he's the only one who's competent

out of all of them. And like maybe him and Laura Linney, you know? Yeah. And I, I'm not saying that's like a deep theme of the movie, but it's like, Oh, that's, that's kind of fun. I enjoyed that, you know? Yeah. This is all just my, my, my subjective opinion. Of course. And I'm, I'm sorry to, I'm just offering my own rebuttal. No, no, sorry. Yeah. I, I, it's not often. I, I, I'm this critical with a movie. But it's so much fun to make fun of. I love it. Yeah, totally.

Peter and Karen, the Dylan Walsh, Laura Linney characters. There's like two or three moments where maybe they're flirting with each other. Maybe there's some interest. That's wrong because her fiance is the whole incentive why she's going there. Her mission should be to save Bruce Campbell. And she forgets that a lot. So that's tone again. That's tone. Like, what is this? Will they, won't they? Frank, Marshall, will you, won't you? Like, you're waffling here and I need you to commit,

buddy. Okay. Fair. Very fair. Yeah. Two more things. This whole thing about the killer gorilla myth. Now, I could be wrong. I am not an expert on apes and gorillas. Supposedly, Dylan Walsh is. He plays Doctor Who. He is so adamant about defending gorillas as peaceful creatures. Like, it's a major argument in the film. Yeah. And I'm thinking about, like, what was the gorilla that was killed at the Cincinnati Zoo shot? Because a child fell into the gorilla enclosure. Yeah.

Because from what I know, there is nothing peaceful about a gorilla. They are dangerous wild animals that could rip your head off. Like literally. So I don't, and again, maybe that's not true. Maybe they are peaceful creatures, but that was like really bothering me that this primatologist was so adamant that gorillas are not capable of killing humans. Especially when all the evidence... Oh, sorry. I was going to interject. There's visual evidence that gorillas did kill these

people. It's caught on camera. And Peter Elliott, the primatologist, is like, oh, it couldn't be. They're peaceful creatures. It's like, dude, look at the video. Clearly it is. So proving your point. Yes, it is ridiculous for sure. So that was a little hard for me to buy, even in this movie. And that gorilla at the Cincinnati Zoo was Harambe. Justice for Harambe. Sounds familiar. Yeah. Was that in like the 90s? Late 90s? No, that was 2001, I think. Okay. Early

2000s. Early 2020s. Okay. My last note. This is a big overarching thing. Because at the end of this movie, I was thinking about like, why am I left kind of not feeling... I want to feel like this is a movie that rocks and I want to watch it again. And I was thinking about The Mummy from 1999 because that's also a similar adventure type of story with a cast of characters and quirky characters and you have emotional

leads. Here's my analysis. In The Mummy, you have leads who are larger than life, but they still... But what brings them together is a shared interest in each other and supporting each other. And there's a real sense of teamwork with those characters. In Congo, I realized none of the characters are interested in helping each other. I feel like they're all siloed in their own mission. Any one of them could leave and go go off on their own and nobody would miss each other. Except

for Laura Linney and Dylan Walsh, maybe. But maybe not. Maybe not. Yeah. So that's an interesting point. Yeah. I feel like with some characters that kind of works like the Monroe Kelly character and the Herkimer Homolka character. But yeah, it's an interesting point. Yeah. Yeah. So. And I'm a playwright, too. So I just I just. I look at relationships between characters. That's just how I'm trained. And I just think that could have been strengthened a lot to increase my investment

in their investment in each other. Yeah. All definitely fair criticisms. I was going to bring up The Mummy as well because I feel like you feel about The Mummy how I feel about Congo a little bit, you know? I feel like our opinions have reversed a little bit where I'm like, yeah, this movie is not very good. And it's so fun. And I like it more than I should, maybe because of like the I remember seeing it when it first came out, you know, and like, yeah, feeling of

adventure and imagination that I had. And, you know, like I'm I'm a little bit older than you. So maybe like there's a gap of four years in between Congo and the mummies. So maybe you had that same experience with the mummy when you saw it, you know? Yeah. Like, I wonder if maybe that plays a role in that, you know? Maybe that's a movie I quote with my buddies and I've seen

it so many times. And yeah. that's nostalgia um as a and informing our opinions and that's okay i think it's totally okay i like we should all you know like as i think we're doing like objectively sort of like analyze the movie and figure out its strengths and weaknesses but also everything is subjective like your response to movies is autobiographical and i think if you have that like nostalgic sort of maybe misguided response it's like yeah embrace that you know

that's that's part of your life i love that not to get too like you know fanciful about it but you've already brought up some campy stuff any other camp humor that you wanted to to mention oh yeah what haven't i mentioned aside from tim curry and the lava and the laser gun i love it I think the biggest camp line for me is at the end when Laura Linney is radioing back to her boss, also the father of the guy who was killed, and who is only interested in the diamonds, not

interested in his son's death. Yeah. He yells, did you get the diamond? It's a good villainous thing to say. It's just that the level is like at a one and immediately goes to an 11 with that line. It was right at the end of the movie. It's just, yeah, like that's great. Love it. Yeah, that's ridiculous for sure. The moment after that is also extremely ridiculous when like they have this huge diamond on the hot air balloon. This is giving away the ending, so I apologize.

We can maybe cut this out. But like, you know, it's the end of the movie and like they have this huge diamond and they could just like sell

it. give it to me give it to a museum like it would benefit them but instead laura lenny just makes this decision to be like as a principled stand i'm gonna throw this diamond in the middle of nowhere in the african jungle it's like you've already escaped the gorillas just keep the diamond why would you do that you know i just thought that was so stupid maybe that's you know greedy of me but ridiculous utterly ridiculous knowledge was the real treasure all along You would hope

the friendships they made along the way, but they didn't make any friendships. So I guess that's not the case. Yeah. Yeah. There's a part where one of the gray gorillas loses its arm from this laser. And I was like, yes, this is the tone. Maybe the whole movie should have had.

This is awesome. yeah the gray gorillas probably should have appeared a little bit earlier they're really just only in like the last 20 minutes of the movie you know yeah that was also another thought i had i would have liked to have seen more of the ostensible villains of this movie the monsters if you will otherwise amy's really the only strange beast in this movie and she's fine she gives a yeah she's great she's drinking a martini that's that's camp There it is. I love

it. Yeah, you're right. That's probably the campiest part of the whole movie. And also Laura Lenny's line where she says, put them on the endangered species list right before she like mows down the gorillas with the laser. Sublime. I love that part so much. So good. I can watch the last 20 minutes of this movie over and over and over again. Yeah. And the pretty bad special effects. You already mentioned the lava and stuff like that. Yeah. I love it when Amy eats the banana

with the like dope in it. There's even like a line about that where one of the scientists is like, uh, you know, some, yeah, it's exactly what I just said basically. And I just thought that was ridiculous. Yeah. There's, there's like a funny line too, where it's like trying to be funny. I still don't know if it works or not, but like one guy is like, this is so Kafka when they're in like the warlords, like manner or whatever. And one of the henchmen is like, Who

the hell is Kafka? Tell me, who is Kafka? And I was like, oh, that's kind of funny. All right, that's pretty ridiculous. That was funny, yeah. I like that moment. So there's some funny intentional humor, I think, here as well. But that's about all the campy stuff that I have. I mean, there's a lot. There's a lot of camp in this movie. And I think, well, okay, I'll save it for my final summation. But yeah, let's go ahead and move on. Yeah, it's about that time. Yeah, so our

ratings on Camp Kaiju. As always, our number one rating, it's a timeless classic. It definitely stands the test of time. Number two, there may be some antiquated moments, but overall it's great. It stands the test of time. Number three, it may be historically significant or just fun, but it does not stand the test of time. And our lowest rating, it is not worth revisiting. It definitely does not stand the test of time. What do you think? Okay, okay, okay. I'm going to

be honest. I'm going to be honest. I was torn between it not standing the test of time at all, like don't even watch this movie, or there are some fun moments. I'm not going to say it's historically significant, but I will say there are some fun moments. As a film by its own merits, I don't think it stands the test of time, but I think there are enough entertaining moments, intentionally or not. that make this worth watching, especially

with a group of friends. I think for me, I think I thought I was going to watch something more serious in tone, something more horrific in tone, maybe like The Relic. And instead, I got something way more lighthearted, way sillier than I thought I was going to get. And I think that messed with... my ultimate viewing of this film. Yeah, I think that's fair. It's definitely lighthearted. I wouldn't say it's scary at all, even remotely.

I'm tempted to give it our highest rating just to like stick up for this movie, but I'm not going to do that. I will not do that. That's just ridiculous. But I am going to give this our second highest rating. I do think it stands the test of time, in my opinion. I will fully recognize that a lot of that might just be like, you know, my personal... experience and history with the movie, the nostalgic love that I have

for it. But I do think it has a lot of imagination, a lot of camp humor that I find really entertaining. I do like several of the performances a lot. I like Ernie Hudson, Tim Curry. I like Laura Linney, even if her character is like non -existent, like doesn't make any sense. I definitely get all that, but I don't know. I do feel the need to, like, I want to stick up for it a little

bit. And I, I really do love like, you know, popcorn entertainment of the 90s because it feels so different from like most of the like big budget blockbusters that we see nowadays. So I don't know. It's this is not a very good movie objectively. And yet I still love it. I think it's great in its own way. For me, it almost gets better as time goes on. So for me, it does stand the test of time. That's great. I if this movie is ever playing on a screen, I'm there. I'm going to

be first in line. Yeah. But yeah, like in a theater, I bet it would be so much fun to watch. And like, you know, at home with some friends, like you said, I think that'd be great. Yeah. I've had that viewing many times. Cool. I actually kind of like when we disagree a little bit, we can't agree on everything, you know? We'll see. Yeah. I mean, I think, I think our upcoming lineup is going to offer more of this diverging opinion type of conversation. I can't wait. I'm excited.

Me too, yeah. Starting with Jaws 2, our next episode. Electric Boogaloo. Yeah. I never understood the full title of Jaws 2, Electric Boogaloo. Where does the boogaloo come in? I guess we'll find out. We'll find out. Might be a French thing. Who knows? Yeah, probably. That'll be great. I'm excited for Jaws 2. Thank you all so much for hanging out, friends. Please rate and review

wherever you listen. You can also share this podcast with a friend, subscribe to the website, and send us listener comments at campkaiju at gmail .com or on Instagram. Links are in the show notes. If you would like to be a featured voice on the show, leave a voicemail at 612 -470 -2612 telling us about your favorite monster movies and memories. Please check out our website, campkaijupodcast .com, for more information.

Camp Kaiju is recorded in Minneapolis, St. Paul, with Mina's mailbox music by Ben Cook -Felts. Thanks, friends, and until next time, stay campy. Camp Kaiju is sponsored by Zach Linder and the Zach Pack, powered by Coldwell Banker Realty, your source for real estate, home rehab, fixing and flipping for investor clients, and residential buyers. Reach out to the Zach Pack today for real estate services, follow the Zach Pack on social media, and contact the Zach Pack for investment

opportunities. Links in the show notes. That's not my fault. Where's my gorilla? The gorilla will be kept on the truck while we... Isn't this a hospital? So this one's decided to speak. This is pure Kafka. Who's Kafka? Tell me!