Kong : King of Beasts
Article by Bindi Lavelle

In 1933 Skull Island’s greatest export , King Kong, rocked the box office. Kong, was spawned film maker Merian C. Cooper’s nightmare about a giant gorilla attacking New York and has become an iconic beast with a long and lustrous career.

So what’s it about? A film crew travels to the aptly named Skull Island, an island inhabited in a Lost World kind of way by dinosaurs and course, one huge ape; the crew catch said ape and take him to New York. Kong gets pissed, takes actress Ann Darrow (Fay Wrey) and trashes the joint.

But what’s the big deal with King Kong anyway? Well, not only did King Kong feature some impressive stop motion animation but Kong as a character; rather than being a mindless beast, Kong was given motivation for his actions, he was a character, not simply something to run away from. This is what sets King Kong apart, the human element within the beast and vice versa.

It is not hard to see this film’s legacy: countless spin-offs, sequels and remakes (most notably Peter Jackson’s loving reproduction as a opposed to the dreaded ‘re-imaging’) This iconic film has been referenced in everything from Yellow Submarine (the film) to The Simpsons. And let’s not forget Donkey Kong.

King Kong was a land mark film not only for its special effects but for its exploration of what drives a monster.