Village of the Giants

What did I not like about this movie? Tommy Kirk in summerwear, a smug Beau Bridges, Ron Howard going the Bill Mumy route, and typical teens roaming free and checking the scene...he's so gone, Jasper!!

Besides go-go dancing, booty shaking, and cleavageploitation, this one has some moments, but some parts just drag and stall. See the plastic breasts gag and you just laugh seeing a guy hanging off of them! The music is definitely dated, but has a neat psychedelic feel; probably the only thing going for it. After awhile, I screamed in utter agony, "Enough dancing already!" The sheriff, played by Joe Turkel, also appears as a blackmailing beatnik in BIG's Tormented!. Why is it in his negotiation scene with Beau and the gang, his voice was noticeably faded out? Great editing John Bushelman!! I really wished Tommy fell into the water filled basement without turning the electricity OFF! Hey, isn't the town square the same universal lot where they shot the town of Hill Valley from Back to the Future? I recognized that clock tower!!

I'm going to have 10 buckets of mini-wings right now.

A group of teenagers become giant sized.

Before this film, we had other "giant movies", such as The Incredible Shrinking Man, but a recent YouTube viewing of Village Of The Giants has made me wonder if "Village" is the best of the lot. It has a sense of B-Grade fun that is hard to capture on film...without looking too stupid that is. The dance scene alone, with the little boy grabbing the giant girl, makes the film a winner. And note the music for the dance scene.

Story elements, character names (Genius) and Ron Howard were all shifted into a Land Of The Giants (1968,ABC) episode called...Genius At Work.

Attention Hollywood: Don't remake this film today, "Village" is a product of the 1960s, it is about the 1960s mentality and 1960s music!

The film is a wonderfully casted and wonderfully scored knockout!

Turn off the brain for this campy craziness. Ron Howard, in his Opie days, invents "goo," which, when ingested, causes super growth. Beau Bridges leads a bunch of bad teens, Tommy Kirk (of Disney comedy fame) is the leader of some good teens, and you are the befuddled audience trying to believe what is transpiring on the screen.

Natch: the idiotic bad teens get a hold of the goo, and turn into colossal idiotic bad teens who take over a small town somewhere. Apparently, the presence of 30 foot hostile giants does not interest anyone outside of the town, so the townsfolk are left to fend for themselves. Of course, nobody in the town except the good teens bother to do anything about it.

Once the giants appear, the action is limited, probably due to a lack of budget for special effects. The growth sequence is about all they really focused on, where they --oh, never mind. It's the highlight of the film, though, trust me. Progressively cheaper and cheaper effects parade their way through the story after that. My favorite is the scene where they try to "tie up" a giant Beau Bridges. You see two plastic poles (supposed to be his legs) being roped by the good teens. They then try to fasten the ropes with hot rods orbiting the "surprised" victim. Every once in a while, they show Beau making spasmodic and confused expressions in slow motion. By the way, whenever they show a character in slow-mo, you know it's one of the giants.

The movie knows it's idiotic, and makes no effort to conceal it. Good for a laugh at how absurd it is.

Bert I. Gordon's "Village of the Giants" is a humorously poor version of the "big thing make boom" movies in which a small group (Maybe 6, hardly a full village) of teens take a formula that makes them grow really big, talk really slow, and move like they are dying one breath at a time. It's all rather silly, and quite funny if you're up for this kind of movie. Of course, it's not funny in the way Gordon intended. Was it ever?

Tommy Kirk, also of the classic "Mars Needs Women" is fooling around with his lady friend in the start of the film, when Ronny Howard (Still with a full head o' hair, and answering to the modest name "Genius") creates a formula that makes things grow. When the no-good drifter teens get their hands on it, they cause some real trouble, and it's up to Tommy and Ronny to stop the chaosy.

The best scene is the first in which the teens appear before the town. They show up at an outdoor barbecue, and everyone is afraid, but really, not so afraid that they run away or anything, they just kind of look up and gasp a lot. So then the giants are making threats, and Tommy, in a fit of rage and large hair, picks up a chair (That just happened to be sitting around outside in a park) and breaks it over the giants legs (They pretend, use your imagination). He goes "Ow!" and then backfists Tommy who gets whalloped. Very nicely done.

The whole film takes place in a vacuum. No one seems to be much surprised or worried by the giants ducks that show up out of nowhere in the Whiskey A Go-Go and start dancing. They just kind of go along with it. Nor is anyone interested in calling the government in when the teens take over the town. They just sort of go with it. And really when these giants move as slow as they do, why would anyone be afraid of them? You can always outrun them, or if they try something, take two steps to the left. Bert I. Gordon, if you'll pardon the expression, just wasn't thinking "big" enough in this movie to really deal with the consequences of his ideas. The end is so banal and rather anti-climactic, especially for what is essentially a monster movie.

All in all, "Village of the Giants" is low on logic, but high on some good laughs, most at its expense.

What do you get when you mix the children of famous Hollywood actors (Beau Bridges, Tisha Stirling and Tim Rooney), a couple of former child stars (Tommy Kirk and Johnny Crawford), a then current child star (Ron "Ronny" Howard) and a future one hit wonder (Toni "Micky" Basil) with a hack director (Burt I. Gordon). You get one of the biggest camp classics in the history of film. This film attempted to mix the then popular beach party flicks with the fading giant human pics. Gordon must have really been desperate for a hit because he figured that if he couldn't get Lloyd Bridges, Ann Southern and Mickey Rooney he could at least get their children to play in one of his quickie drive-in movie features. It's fun if you like camp, but as far as a great film, I'll stick with the films this mess rips off.