The Village of Guilt

When the TV series, "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" began, it emphasized villains. But shortly thereafter, the show began to feature sea monsters...and they became frequent guest stars on the program. Here, we have both...a crazed villain AND monsters!

The show begins with some Norwegian guys getting attacked by a sea monster (actually, this clip was lifted from a film animated by Ray Harryhausen...I think it might have been "It Came From Beneath the Sea"). Soon the Seaview is dispatched there to investigate. Oddly, the townsfolk are an amazingly unfriendly lot and they do their best to hinder the investigation. And, you wonder why as the baddie responsible for the gigantic sea creatures is a nasty and nutty sort of fellow who loves to play god (Richard Carlson).

Monsters and a megalomaniacal doctor...more than enough reason to watch this one.

This had a lot of nice atmosphere and despite the plot, played it "straight" with many good touches (like many Irwin Allen TV shows, they started out more or less fine before descending into "What kind of weird monster can we feature this week?" Richard Carlson, a very underrated actor in my estimation, shows here that he could play outside the scope of diffident youths (when younger) or straight-laced scientific-types (as he got older). He gives a well nuanced performance here and it's quite a different characterization for him. The rubber octopus is bogus (shades of "Bride of the Monster" almost) but the clips lifted from "It Came from Beneath the Sea" made for a good opening. No disrespected intended to fans of the show or the creative forces behind it, but how on Earth did Richard Basehart get involved in this series? I mean, heck, the man was in "La Strada"!

An octopus attack sends Nelson and Crane to a "village of guilt".

Directed by Irwin Allen himself as this was the second episode in production order (and UK/Australian DVD order).

Irwin Allen directed some of the best TV hours ever made (mainly the pilots to Voyage, Time Tunnel and Land Of The Giants) so I went into The Village Of Guilt expected some mind-blowing images/dialogue/music as we normally get in Allen directed hours...but got this instead!

Okay, granted, maybe I was expected too much as this episode does not have the budget of a pilot, but hey, I thought I was going to get something better.

This could best be described as an episode with a few fun bits: the giant sea creatures seen through the Seaview nose window, Irwin Allen himself doing the un-credited voice of the radio guy at the start.

Other reviewers here seem to see more in this hour than me, so good for them!