KINKY KONG (2006)

Following the general plot outline of the recent Peter Jackson remake of King Kong, this silly spoof follows a slightly unscrupulous filmmaker (Fedele) and his crew as they board a ship (with Darian Caine as the ship's potato peeler!) headed for the mysterious Bone Island. There they encounter a giant masturbating gorilla in a diaper (or nappy as we call them Down Under), who takes a liking to Fedele's leading lady (newcomer Faire). Meanwhile, Fedele gets the bright idea of trying to capture the horny beast to bring back to America and make him rich.

I really shouldn't have liked this hilariously titled spoof as much as I did. It's not the best film of its type I have seen (The Sexy Adventures of Van Helsing would rank highest, with its 'pull my finger' gag), and a great deal of the film's slim running time is devoted to needless padding. However, whilst the bloated Jackson remake gave us about an hour and a half of exposition and backstory that we quite frankly didn't need, Kinky Kong gives us needless and repetitive scenes of girls stripping for the camera, for long periods of time using generally the same stripping techniques. I counted five such scenes in the opening 40 minutes of the film for crying out loud. But hey, I'll take strippers over boring attempts to recreate the 1930s Depression Era, any day!
If you took out those stripping scenes and added a few more lesbian scenes (relevant or not- I never said I wasn't a hypocrite), this might well have been a cult classic. I mean, we are talking about a giant masturbating gorilla in his underwear. Does it get any better than that, folks? For one, the performances aren't too bad. Fedele is way over the top, but so was the miscast Jack Black in the Jackson film and that was supposed to be serious. Meanwhile, Caine proves, as she has in other films, to be quite a good comedy actress, despite being saddled with a bit of a dud role. Her 'All Hands on Deck' scene is bizarre, sexy, and absolutely hilarious (sometimes unintentionally, the actresses involved can hardly contain the giggles). Kahn, who has a rather superfluous role, also proves to be one of the better actresses from this stable and even does the standard 'Scream Queen' pose to perfection.

And did I mention the giant, nappy-wearing, masturbating ape? (Am I the only one who found Jackson's remake to be a three-hour masturbatory fantasy anyway?) The scene where Kong is playing with two Barbie and Ken-type dolls (filling in for human actors, the wonderfully cheesy FX are done by Brett Piper by the way, who certainly knows what kind of film he's making) just warms my Godzilla-loving heart. It's true that the shot-at-a-distance lesbian scene miffed me a little (I need help, seriously), but when you consider that the scene also contains one of the film's funniest moments (a fight between Kong and a dopey-looking T-Rex, which turns into a "Brokeback Kong" moment, quite possibly the weirdest thing you'll ever see), even an old perv like me can't be too upset.
The film may not be as well-made or sexy as The Sexy Adventures of Van Helsing, but it sure is a funny movie in its own right. It's such a shame about those seemingly tacked-on stripping scenes, though, because the film really could've been better. But hey, any film that has a giant masturbating ape (how many times have I used the word masturbate or its variations so far?) who can be knocked out by methane gas is certainly worth seeing at least once. It's also kinda cute in a perverted, naughty schoolboy kind of way. And you just know that there's gonna be a scene where the big horny ape eventually blows his load, right? You'll want to keep rewinding that one, over and over, along with my personal favourite, a scene involving Kong getting acquainted with the Statue of Liberty. And you know the film's about a giant masturbating ape, right?

The DVD comes equipped with trailers for Kinky Kong, Spiderbabe, the terrific Shock-o-Rama, American Idle, Chainsaw Sally, Carlito's Angels, and The Girl Who Shagged Me. There is also a behind-the-scenes feature offering a chance to see a few scenes being filmed and some bloopers. It's very short but worth it to hear the Kong actor say "Would you believe I graduated from Julliard?". There is also a pretty good audio commentary by producer Michael Raso, and a podcast interview conducted by a major kiss-arse. Raso talks about the concept of doing sexy spoofs, laments that no one is really making T&A flicks any more, or at least until Seduction Cinema and the like turned up.