Village of the Giants

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.

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.

This film opens with a group of presumably drugged out teens emerging from their rather badly wrecked automobile, only to dance around it maniacally and flop in the mud. Before long, one of them gets the idea to "go into town and make a little noise" or some such rot, and the fun begins when they run into giant ducks in the local dance parlor. These giants are the product of a goo accidentally created by a Opie-era "Ronny" Howard, who goes by the 'nickname' genius.

Amazingly, a sniveling Beau Bridges is the gangleader and they find the goo and dare each other to eat it, then halfheartedly try to run the town. See the spineless Tommy Kirk bust a rigged chair on a giant fake leg!!

See Beau Bridges and the fairly hot Toni Basil and another hot girl traipse around in curtain-like toga-sarongs! See director Bert I. Gordon make even more of an ass out of himself than ever and feel his ire as Mike and the bots tear him to shreds as usual! Laugh along as Tom Servo wrestles with his aversion to the movie "Willow", which he fantasizes was budding in young Ronny Howard's mind even then! And through it all, thrill to the exhilarating surf tones of the fabulous Beau Brummels! At least it's in technicolor.

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.

Loosely...and I mean loosely based on H. G. Wells's The Food of the Gods, director/producer/writer Bert I. Gordon, Mr BIG himself, brings us a tale about a roving gang of teen thugs(nothing like today' s variation)who walk to a small town surrounded by a mudslide. In that town, a young genius, creatively named "Genius" works on varying experiments. One of these experiments when fed to a living thing causes the living thing to grow to tremendous proportions. We first see ducks, then a dog, and finally a tarantula. The gang takes the "food of the Gods" and gets big...and you can figure what happens for the most part after that. Highly unimaginative and lewd, Village of the Giants is really more concerned with showing beautiful scantily clad girls in tight polyester slacks and bikini tops grow to epic proportions. We see them literally bust out of their garments. They wear toga-like outfits, dance sensuously, bend over as much as possible to give the greatest vantage point to their cleavage, and so on. One giant girl even picks a "small" man up and has him hang from her top while she dances. The girls are all babes. Joy Harmon is stunning as is Tisha Sterling. But my gripe is...what's the point of presenting this as science fiction if all you really want to do is make this type of film? The acting ranges from OK(Ronny Howard is better than everyone else!), less than adequate(most of the gang including its leader Beau Bridges), to just bad(Tommy Kirk). Typical Bert Gordon special effects are here too. As mentioned by many other viewers, the music is really the best thing about the movie - well, next to Joy Harmon and Tisha Sterling and the other gang girls!