VILLAGE OF THE GIANTS: TITANIC TEENS!

 

 

I can remember the first time I ever saw VILLAGE OF THE GIANTS. Not details or on what show perhaps but I did remember the images of giant teens draped in, well, drapes. Off how the pre-teen mind works. I didn’t recall many details but those images were in my brain all these years later. So when I heard Kino Lorber was releasing the film on Blu-ray I looked forward to it. 

The story opens with a group of delinquent style teens having crashed their car outside a small town looking for kicks and drinking beer. Led by Fred (a young Beau Bridges) they frolic in the mud and then head into Hainesville, CA, to look for kicks since Fred remembers a girl named Nancy live there.

Nancy (Charla Doherty) is at her house with her boyfriend Mike (Tommy Kirk) watching over the house and her little brother “Genius” (Ron Howard) while her parents are away for the weekend. Suffice to say she’s paying more attention to Mike and her brother. When they hear an explosion from Genius’ lab they go to check it out. He’s created a formula he calls goo that increases the size of anything that drinks it, including the pet ducks. Mike sees this as an opportunity where they can make some money and feed the world. 

The delinquent teens have broken into an abandoned theater where they clean up before checking out a local club. The Beau Brummels are there playing as Red (Toni Basil) dances in the go go cage. Mike and Nancy show up and not long after so do the ducks. Mike tells a few friends how they got too big and soon the ducks are slaughtered and the entire teen community is having a cook out in the town square. Not only that Freddie Cannon shows up to sing a song. Fred and his group overhear how the ducks got so big and thinking only of making money they set out to steal the goo.

Fred and his gang steal the goo and head back to the theater. They argue with one another about what to do with it and after the group pressures him Fred decides to cut up what they have and each of them eats it. The end result is them all increasing in size as their clothes rip apart to about 30 feet tall. They clothe themselves in the drapes left in the theater and head out to cause some extra big trouble. 

They block the roads, tear down the outgoing telephone poles and bend antenna in the area isolating the town. They also kidnap the sheriff’s daughter and hold her hostage so he won’t try and stop them. Calling for all guns to be confiscated they demand food be brought to them. The adults in town are frozen in fear. Not so the teens.

Mike sets Genius in motion to find an antidote to the goo. The good teens then revolt against the bad ones and pay for their efforts. The site of Mike’s friend Horsey (Johnny Crawford) hanging from a makeshift bra between Merrie’s (Joy Harmon) oversized chest is both one young boys remembered and hilarious to see as an adult. But can they find an antidote? Can the teens save the town? 

This is definitely not a movie made to be taken seriously. It was an exploitation movie to the bone directed by Bert I. Gordon who made his fair share of movies for the low budget AIP (American International Pictures) company. Movies like THE CYCLOPS, THE AMAZING COLOSSAL MAN and ATTACK OF THE PUPPET PEOPLE. He had experience with giants. This was the type of teen movie that was made to appeal to a younger audience hitting the drive-in every weekend. And it was a success with this crowd. 

The movie is definitely dated by the music and gyrating teens as well as the stars in the film who would go on to bigger things. Bridges went on to a successful career as an actor. Basil would become famous with her song “Mickey” years later. Kirk had been a favorite in Disney films but his star was fading at the time. The same was true for Crawford who had been successful as Chuck Connor’s son on THE RIFLEMAN but was relegated to bit parts after. And Howard went on to stop acting and become one of the biggest directors in the last few decades. 

The movie was not the greatest film ever made but it was and remains a lot of fun. So much so that MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000 even did an episode with it. It’s great that Kino Lorber has released the film on Blu-ray and given it new life with a much needed 4k restoration of the film. Extras are limited with trailers and a new audio commentary track by film historian Tim Lucas. For some lighthearted fun this movie is well worth adding to your collection, recalling a time from the past when teen movies were fun, filled with the music of the time and not to be taken seriously.

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