Worst films ever. Andrew Roberts lays out the rules of awful British movies – and there are plenty to choose from
One of the recent highlights on the Talking Pictures TV channel was Konga (1961), the tale of Dr Charles Decker, a mad scientist played by Michael Gough at his most fiendish. He employs a growth serum on a chimpanzee, transforming his simian friend into a stunt performer wearing a gorilla costume. Unfortunately, the doctor is also given to shooting his pets, ranting, ‘You fool! Do you think I want the biggest experiment of my life menaced by a cat? Even those few drops might have made Tabby swell up to huge proportions!’ Konga was produced by Herman Cohen, the genius behind I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1975). He claimed the cost of his British masterpiece was $1 million and that it boasted the new SpectaMation trick-photography system. The result was a picture that posed many questions to its audience. What became of the remaining $999,450 of the budget, to judge...
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