King Kong documentary by former HSDC student to get free screening at The Spring Arts Centre in Havant

The Legend of King Kong began life as a short-film project for Tom Grove’s film and TV course at Havant and South Downs College.

It is now a four-part epic, starting with the 1933 original, going through the 1976 remake with Jessica Lange to Peter Jackson’s 2005 version, and the giant ape’s latest incarnation in the Legendary Pictures’ Monsterverse along with Godzilla.

On Sunday at 6pm, Part One – Kong, The Eighth Wonder of The World! is being screened for free at The Spring Arts Centre in Havant.

Tom’s first success was making contact with the original director’s nephew after tracking him down online.

Tom, 19, says: ‘I made a small mock-up of a voiceover and with the interview of this guy for 10 minutes for college.

‘Then when I left college, I contacted more people and it expanded, and now I've got about 30 people I’ve interviewed and it's grown into about four hours of film.’

‘Episode one focuses on the guys who made the original - so you've got my interview with the nephew, then it goes through (legendary special effects artist) Ray Harryhausen and all the people who did the stop-motion. Then there's a bit of talk about Son of Kong, the lesser known sequel which was released a couple of months after the original.’

Tom’s love of monster flicks hails back to his childhood, watching them with his family.

‘When I was young, every Sunday, I remember sitting down after dinner and my dad would put the TV on some film channel. There'd be all the old Godzilla films. Since then I've been obsessed with all of the old Japanese monster movies – obviously King Kong floods into that genre as well.

‘Then over the last couple of years, I've gained more of an appreciation for King Kong because that was the first big monster movie – he first appeared in the ’30s, while Godzilla wasn't until the ’50s.

‘There is so much history to go into – you could go on for hours and hours even just about the first film.’

The eye-catching poster for the documentary was created by family friend and renowned comic artist Ian Richardson, who's previously worked for 2000 AD, Dark Horse and Marvel Panini UK. The poster was then coloured by Darren Stephens, who also worked with 2000 AD as well as DC Comics.

Tickets are free but please book in advance at thespring.co.uk.

A message from the Editor, Mark Waldron

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