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2004-01-04
2003-02-17The premise is simple enough. A young boy played by Ron Howard named Genius invents some substance that he names "Goo" . They don't realize it yet but soon enough after a cat accidently eats the stuff and then grows to the size of an elephant, they realize that this stuff makes anything that ingests it grow to huge proportions. They instantly see dollar signs before their eyes hoping to better man kind with such an invention. A few bullies though have some other ideas and steal the substance and all grow into huge 50 foot giants/giantesses and start to take over the town. Its up to Genius and Tommy Kirk to bring these titans back down to size.
Its full of many jokes that just aren't meant to be funny but come off as hysterical. It has a lot of bad effects. (Like two wooden legs in the middle of the street that are supposed to be one of the giants own legs. Cheap motorcycles that fall apart after they try to tie up one of the legs of the giant, giant animals that can't seem to move from the spot they are in due to the way they did the effect. Also the fact that they seem to be trapped inside a huge stage for most of the movie . How they ever got in though without breaking anything is beyond me. ) and not to mention the really bad acting (Talking really slow to make it seem like they are giants and the corny diologue througout). Then the best is the music. Its just so out there it really makes this movie perfect.
This was supposed to be one of those Teen explotation movies of the 60s and it pulls it off well. We have the teens not wanting to listen to the adults anymore because of their size and such things as playing with sex (one fo the giantesses gives a small boy a dance hugging him to her breasts) and ordering the cops around. It really is an interseting movie for what it is and the hidden messages in it. Really a fun movie though overall. You will laugh at the diolage and special effects but I think thats part of the charm of this movie. Not every movie has to be serious and ILM effects. This was just a fun , carefree, fantasy type of situation movie. It holds no punches and doesn't even take itself seriously so we the viewer of it shoudln't either. Defintely fun and a good movie to watch with friends just for the laughs .
Excellent Camp/Features Vintage Beau Brummels 2002-10-31
I first saw this great campy film 20 years ago on TV and its got a great mixture of INTENTIONAL camp, the beginnings of a pre-hippy teen rebelliousness (1965), and some great music from Beau Brummels. The key to this film is not to take it seriously...the cast and crew didn't. "Genius" (Ron Howard) invents "GOO", a substance that turns rebel teens into giants who take over a village and the only hope is for Genius to find an antedote. He does just in time and it all works out in the end. But not before we get some giant ducks dancing to BBs live perfomance of "Woman" and other great pre-psychedelic background music. It's a trippy comedy of it's era. You can trash it, but then you miss the point.
Also don't miss those ...giant teen girls; when they grow their bikinis pop off. And when they shrink their clothes are not quite as big as you'd think.
To say it is Bert I.'s finest film would be faint praise. 
2002-09-10
This was, at the time of its release, no less than the crowning achievement of man. So it should not dim the glory of Village of the Giants one bit that a mere 4 years later, Armstrong's moonwalk eclipsed this film's importance to humanity. The fact remains that Village of the Giants represents a watershed moment in our history.
It is, and you can believe me, because I am a believable guy, the BEST BAD MOVIE OF ALL TIME!
All the things that make Bert I. Gordon movies what they are are present here, in full- and silly- force. In fact, it is as if all Bert's planets aligned at once, and he found his true calling, moving beyond mere Colossal Beasts and Cyclopean things and giant Spiders, to those most photogenic of glandular mishaps: Giant women! Not to say that there isn't a giant tarantula in this film, or a colossal beast in the whiny form of a young Beau Bridges, but Bert's camera clearly favors the elephantine charms of Joy and Tish (as well as the average-sized pulchritude of Toni) over the evermore passe thrills of mere oversized creatures. Like, giant grasshoppers are SO 1957!
Other things contribute to the overall pleasing quality of this film's ineptitude, not the least of which is, despite Bert's recurrent leering, a basically naïve sensibility: movies had not become too dirty or trashy yet. The bad teens are about as menacing as wheelchair-bound octogenarians- they wear cardigans, for goshsakes. And while there is a definite cheesecake factor at play here, it is in the G-rated manner of the Frankie-and-Annie Beach Party films, not the slimy type in evidence in later Hammer horrors.
Other bad movies are equally as "bad." Al Adamson, Jerry Warren, Colman Francis, Ed Wood's later stuff, even Bert himself a few years later... all of these guys make lousy films. But they're sleazier somehow- not as *fun.*
Fans of the Hideous Sun Demon know well how star Robert Clarke's trousers became soaked with sweat during filming in the hot sun, to the point where it looked as though the Sun Demon couldn't control his bladder. That led to unintentional hilarity for B-lovers.
Now imagine several howlingly funny instances like that for every minute of this film's 80-minute run time. Dialogue, plot, effects, music, direction- everything is side-splittingly ...here. There are more laughs in this movie than in Jim Carrey's entire filmography.
And far from being the bewildering, incoherently awful mess that Plan 9 is, this movie is very straightforward; it just does everything in such an over-the-top and utterly wrong fashion.
Now, in the manner of the copy on those lovably hyperbolic posters from days gone by, I will outline only a fraction of this movie's treasured moments:
See! Beau Bridges try to pick up a chick by telling her his dad is the biggest man in the meat business!
See! Where John Ratzenberger got his inspiration for Cliff Clavan the mother-dominated postman in Beau's wink-wink nudge-nudge performance!
See! Ronnie Howard create a substance which turns normal things into giants, and act surprised when they leave!
See! Tommy Kirk claim the giant ducks for his own, raising his arms as though he just scored the winning touchdown!
See! The infamous ride of a young cowboy on Joy Harmon's bust!
See! Bert I. Gordon's directorial genius, as shots of the tail feathers of ducks being tortured by gaffers are intercut with shots of boogieing girls' rear ends!
See! Song after song after song after song, each one more hypnotically campy and dated than the last!
See! "Giants" moving very s l o w ly, to signify how totally, you know, HUGE they are!
See! Cops not notice the 30-foot tall teens in technicolor clothing standing ten feet away!
See! Tommy break a fake chair over Beau's skinny, knobby, hairy plaster leg, then listen in incredulity as Beau shouts, "O o o o o o oww!" and pouts!
See! Several scenes of interminable length while the bad "teens" shake it before the camera! See Beau make fine use of the ever-popular dance technique known as 'The White Man's Overbite!'
See! Midgets longing to be giants!
See! Much more wonderful, terrible stuff than I could tell you about if this review were five times this long! This really doesn't even begin to touch how comic the dialogue, or performances, or the direction are!
See! Yourself buying this dvd posthaste! Then, buy one for a friend!
See! also: Hideous Sun Demon; Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine; Astounding She-Monster; Jail Bait; Brain From Planet Arous; Phantom Planet; Attack of the Fifty-Foot Woman (1958); Magic Sword!
There's just something about this godawful flick! 2002-08-03
Okay, okay, I know some people might be in disbelief that I actually gave this flick 5 stars, but -- despite its godawfulness -- there's just something mesmerizing about it! The story involves a group of teens (yeah right, more like mid-twenties)who find a potion that turns them into giants. It's campy and the "special effects" are laughingly awful, yet the flick is highly entertaining for a number of reasons: First of all, the bass-driven wierd 60's musical score is great; as is the accompanying sensual dancing of the giants (they really don't know what else to do after becoming giants, so they just dance); the cast -- which includes a young Ron Howard -- is great; and last but certainly not least, the cast includes a young redheaded Toni Basil (who went on to become a one-hit wonder with "Hey Mickey"); Basil is so incredibly sexy and gorgeous, it's worth seeing the movie just for her! Watch out for Basil in a bikini in the pool party scene! So, yeah, overall it's a real turkey, but a golden turkey!
"I Was Big Before" ~ Oversized Go-Go Dancers Gone Wild 2008-06-10
Synopsis: A group of delinquent teenagers out looking for a good time steal a secret growth formula from a kid genius (Ron Howard) and expand to gigantic proportions. Just for kicks they decide to terrorize the local town folk and dance up a storm until someone can discover a way to shrink them back to size.
Critique: `Village of the Giants' from '65 is one of those films that fall into the often times embarrassing category of guilty pleasures. For lack of a better way to describe the storyline you might say it's a cross between the Frankie and Annette `Beach Party' movies with a heavy dose of the television series `Land of the Giants'.
Yes, this is a pretty bad flick that looks worse now some forty-three years later. It does however have some very well known names in the cast along with the offspring of some other film and television personalities. Personally speaking my attachment to this film was for the inclusion of two lovely young ladies in the cast; Joy Harmon (the girl washing the car in `Cool Hand Luke') and Gail Gilmore. Ah yes.., childhood crushes are difficult to overcome and I definitely had one on these two.
My Rating: Don't expect much and you won't be too disappointed: -3 Stars-.
Main Title Music re-used in Tarentinos Grindhouse "Death Proof" 2007-05-13
The awsome main title music by Jack Nitsche has be re-used by Quentin Tarentino in his film Death Proof but its called The Last Race
A 1950s Drive-in Movie Style Film 2007-03-27
Although this movie was made in 1965, it feels more like a 1950s 'drive-in movie!' The story is so totally ridiculous that it comes off as a genuine fun movie. It is also interesting to see some quite big-name stars as teens (e.g. Beau Bridges, who didn't even get a listing on the DVD cover!) or children (Ron Howard, then known as Ronny Howard). If you want some very light, comical entertainment with nothing that would offend most traditional values families, this is one movie to watch.
Village Idiots 2004-04-07
Film notable for featuring a pre-teen Ron Howard (at the height of his "Opie" fame)and a young adult Beau Bridges (son of Lloyed, older brother of Jeff, THE FABULOUS BAKER BOYS). Howard as "Genius" (a child-scientific-chemistry-wiz)develops a potion to make humans and animals grow to titanic proportions. A bunch of delinquent teens (headed by Bridges) get a hold of the "Food of the Gods" (the H.G. Wells story upon which it is based) and terrorize the town. It is up to the local "good teens" (headed by Tommy Kirk of Disney fame: i.e. OLD YELLER, THE SHAGGY DOG) to stop them. The plot is basically very sophomoric with some social commentary of delinquent teens of the period, mixing the mentality and look of the "beach party" movies with very light sci-fi. The only thing missing is Frankie, Annette and Eric Von Zipper. The cheesy special effects fits the mentality of the film. One aspect of this are the giant animals superimposed on the screen with the human counterparts and a hilarious sequence in which Beau Bridges giant legs are being attacked by various characters: it looks totally fake and unrealistic. The film is fairly entertaining and their is a provacative sequence after the "delinquent teens" take the potion. As they grow, their clothes don't grow along with them (at least the filmakers showed some plausibility and logic in the film). Then they make some "revealing" makeshift clothing, and before they terrorize the town, they "go-go" dance in front of everyone. Overall, a brainless and harmless film with some some future stars in the cast. Note: Look for actress Joy Harmon in the cast as one of the delinquent teens. She was in the famous car-washing sequence in COOL HAND LUKE. Also, look for actor Johnny Crawford in the cast as one of the good teens. He was in tv's THE MICKEY MOUSE CLUB, THE RIFLEMAN and cult film, THE GREAT TEXAS DYNAMITE CHASE.
it took a village to raise these damn idiots 2004-01-15
Beau Bridges leads a less than all-star cast of misfits in this flick that mixes H.G. Welles's "Food of the Gods" with the AIP bikini-beach movies. When Bridges and company (a group of like-minded delinquents) get into a fender-bender outside the mythical town of Haynesville, they decide to head in and party. These aren't the sort of kids to let a smashed car get between them and fun. Unbeknownst to them, a young kid named "Genius" and played by an Opie-era Ron Howard, toils away in his lab (beakers, Bunsen burners and all) on whatever young geniuses toil on, and accicentally creates the mysterious "goo". Whatever eats the goo grows to forced-perspective style gigantic size. (They test the stuff out on a couple of giant geese which promptly become the main course at a town BBQ; faster than you can say "shouldn't we test this stuff on laboratory convicts, Haynesville are munching on mutated foie gras.) Realizing the possibilities of the goo, Bridges and Co. steal the goo. Running out of ideas, they eat the goo and become the giants of the title - swelling out of their clothes in a scene that has become the stuff of MST3K. Exerting their will on the town, Bridges's gang enslave those who live there - forcing the diminutive population into serving them tons of fried chicken and cola. It's up to Genius and Tommy Kirk (who plays the guy putting the moves on Genius's big sister) to save the day. Will he succeed and cut Bridges down to size, or will Haynesville remain beholden to a gang of 90-foot teenagers in home made bikinis (made out of theater curtains?
Okay, you're thinking - who cares? As 60's fun, "Village" has less entertainment than say "Ghost in the Invisible Bikini" but doesn't go out for easy laughs. Most of the time you'll be watching the screen thinking "no way!" It's a thin flick with some re-play value (watching the younger Beau Bridges act horribly; watching Ron Howard in the script's least important role, knowing the bigger and better things he went onto) but would have done better with the Harvey Lembeck treatment. Also, watch out for a fiery-haired dancer played by Toni Basil of "Oh Micky" fame, and Joy Harmon, the car-wash girl from "Cool Hand Luke", as a fellow giant who thought she was big enough to begin with.
The DVD transfer isn't anything special - let's face it, this isn't the flick you got a DVD player for. There are no extras (this flick wasn't made with a "making of" documentary in mind) but the menu hearkens back to the go-go `60s and highlights that this is a fun light flick.
