Tag Archives: John Guillermin

King Kong Lives (1986) | John Guillermin

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In this sequel to the 1976 remake of Kong Kong, none of the original cast returns, except in archival footage shown in the intro depicting Kong after getting shot down from the top of the World Trade Center and falling to the streets below. We come to learn that Kong (Peter Elliott) improbably survived, existing in a coma for ten years on life support in a giant lab facility in Atlanta awaiting a giant artificial heart to replace the organic one that can no longer support him without medical assistance. Kong also needs lots of ape plasma for the surgery but there aren’t apes like him to give blood. The lead heart surgeon, Dr. Amy Franklin (Linda Hamilton), laments that only a miracle can save Kong.

That miracle arrives when the soldier-of-fortune Hank Mitchell (Brian Kerwin) discovers another giant ape while scouting for diamonds in the jungles of Borneo. He finds a way to bring the female ape back to the United States for fortune and glory. The lab needs her plasma but the two apes sense the presence of each other, which makes it particularly dangerous for any humans trying to keep the apes from doing what apes want to do naturally.  The apes escape their confinement and run away as fugitives, but the scientists can’t have these two roaming the Great Smoky Mountains wreaking havoc, so the military, led by the tenacious Colonel Nevitt (John Ashton), is called in to take whatever measures and necessary. It’s up to Dr. Franklin and Hank Mitchell to lead them to safety somehow. John Guillermin directs.

King Kong (1976) | John Guillermin

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In this remake of the 1933 classic of the same name, Petrox, a gasoline corporation, sends an expedition to an uncharted island near Micronesia obscured by perpetual fog to find out if there’s oil there. Stowing away is Jack Prescott (Jeff Bridges), a paleontologist from Princeton University curious if the reports of a giant primate residing on there are true. they pick up another unexpected passenger in Dwan (Jessica Lange), an aspiring American actress adrift in a lifeboat.

What they find instead of useable oil is a gorilla six times the size of a normal ape, who is the god to which the native villagers sacrifice women, of which Dwan becomes the next in line. Kong takes a liking to Dwan but gets captured by the Petrox people who take him back to the United States to gain publicity. Problems arise when the ape escapes and begins destroying the city searching for Dwan. Charles Grodin Costars. John Guillerman directs this Dino De Laurentiis production fro a Lorenzo Semple Jr. Script.

Sheena (1984) | John Guillermin

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The story of Sheena involves a young girl orphaned after her geologist parents are killed in a cave-in while exploring the source of mystical healing soil found near the jungle in the fictional African country of Tigora.  The native Zambouli villagers immediately adopt the girl, dubbing her “Sheena,” prophecied to be their savior and the future queen of the jungle.  Sheena grows up to be a strikingly beautiful woman (Tanya Roberts), learning how to communicate and control animals with her mind, ride a zebra, and other mystical arts.

Trouble brews in her territory when Prince Otwani (Trevor Thomas), an ex-football placekicker, joins in a plot to assassinate his brother, King Jabalani (Clifton Jones) so that he can gain untold riches from the fertile Zambouli lands he’s been protecting.  Shaman, one of the Zambouli leaders, is framed for the killing. Still, a visiting American sports news crew, led by charismatic sports reporter Vic Casey (Ted Wass), captures the events as they happen, showing that a significant coup was in play.  Otwani, wanting the incriminating tape back at any cost, sets about capturing Vic before he can escape, but with the help of Sheena and her animal friends, Casey means to get out of the country to set the record straight.

John Guillermin directs.