_**Cool score, gorgeous women and those wild 60s!**_
In some ways "Village of the Giants" (1965) is a godawful flick about a group of "kids" (more like mid-20s) who stumble upon a potion that turns them into giants. Godawful or not, there's just something mesmerizing about this flick! It's ridiculous and the "special effects" are laughable, yet it's full of energy and is thoroughly entertaining in a swingin' 60s kind of way; and entertainment's the name of the game.
Highlights include: the weird bass-driven 60's score titled "The Last Race" by Jack Nitzsche (borrowed by Tarantino for "Death Proof"); the accompanying sensual dancing of the "teens" (they really don't know what else to do after becoming giants, so they just dance, lol); the cast includes a young Ron Howard, Beau Bridges, Robert Random and Tommy Kirk, as well as not one, not two, but three gorgeous 60's females -- Joy Harmon, Tisha Sterling and, best of all, a young redheaded Toni Basil (who went on to become a one-hit wonder with "Hey Mickey"). Watch out for Basil in the pool party scene. She also has an extended dance sequence late in the film in black leotards.
So, yeah, "Village of the Giants" is a real turkey, but it's a golden turkey. " For comparison, it's superior to the contemporaneous "Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!" (which was released 2.5 months earlier) in that it is (1) in color, (2) doesn't attempt to be serious melodrama in the manner of "A Streetcar Named Desire" and (3) lacks a sneering one-dimensional psychopathic vixen as antagonist. In other words, "Village" treads similar terrain to "Faster" but without the negative elements.
The film runs 1 hour, 21 minutes, and was shot in Burbank and Hollywood, Ca.
GRADE: B (Actually a "C" but "A" for entertainment value; so overall "B" )
This movie has one strange flaw that doesn't make any sense. Whenever anything goes wrong, the guys and their girlfriends just stand up and start dancing. No one explains why their car has an accident on a flooded road, so they just get out of the car and start dancing. They seem to be immune to normal reactions when things go wrong. Otherwise, it does hit the note for being different. Theres also some goofy sounding music from the Beau Brummells and Freddy Boom Boom Cannon. Toni Basil arranged the dances, I guess they needed to get some mileage out of her work. Certainly it tries hard to tickle the funny bone.
