"And lo, the beast looked upon the face of beauty. And it stayed its hand from killing. And from that day, it was as one dead."- Old Arabian Proverb

King Kong (Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Schoedsack, 1933) stands as being a very influential monster/horror film. The special effects are impressive for the time. The stop-motion scenes with the creatures are detailed which would have terrified an audience of the time and even today are quite impressive and a bit intimidating. The character of Kong shows a horrifying beast but towards the end the audience starts to feel for the monster and see his side. This is shown well through the special effects and stop motion of the creature. The story-line addresses the "Beauty and the Beast" theme as well as the contrast between city and nature. King Kong has had a large influence on filmmakers since with the use of special effects and innovations as well as the theme of sci-fi giant beast with films such as Godzilla (Roland Emmerich, 1998) and Mighty Joe Young (Ron Underwood, 1998). An enjoyable film, if not only for the transformation of technology in film, for the intriguing story-line.