EXPERIMENT 523 - VILLAGE OF THE GIANTS

(Observe my MST inventory)

It's a rare opportunity to comment on one of the first Mystery Science Theater experiments to attract me to this series, and even rarer to be able to offer this experiment to the trading community. But I can not only offer it, I can offer the tape from the very first time I viewed this masterpiece in December 1995.

VOTG and I go back a long way. It was a frequent 3:30 movie staple on KABC Los Angeles in the 1970s. About once a year, we could see this epic (slightly edited) after school for our viewing pleasure. Starring Ron Howard, Tommy Kirk, Tim Rooney (Mickey's son), Beau Bridges, Tish Sothern and a host of children of yesteryear's stars, it is the story of a group of wild teenagers who take over a town after growing to monstrous size. The chemical formula causing the unnatural growth is invented by Ron Howard, who is the only actor to escape this debacle with his career unscathed. Beau Bridges is cast rather badly as sort of a geeky punkish leader of the bad kids. We even see Toni Basil (who later wrote the 1900s hit "Oh Mickey") as one a minor character and even more minor dancer.

This amazing spectacle is directed by Bert I. Gordon, a mainstay of schlock cinema involved with unnatural growth of ants, teenagers, and locusts. The joke is funny until we see some of his antics - superimposing photos of ducks, who move by strings tied to their legs and wings. It's funny until you realize that animals probably did suffer to make this film. He also uses a stupid projection trick in which our villains hid out in a movie theater - setting the stage for a stupid effect in which they are projected onto a movie screen in front of normal size actors. Really, Bert I. should appear on "no fly" lists for this horrificly bad movie.

All-in-all, this flick asks for, no, BEGS for the MST3K treatment. And I'm happy to provide this excellent encode to the MST3K viewing community. The host segments are exquisite, with the theme of Frank being downsized and replaced at Deep 13 by Torgo. Watch for the MST3K classic song, "Let Me Be Frank About Frank". .

Recommended. If you want to take this experiment for a test run, email me!!