Village of the Giants is sort of your typical fantasy-comedy from the 1960s and easy to see why it was mocked on Mystery Science Theater 3000, but without them, watching on its own is kind of a chore as for the most part it’s fairly dull.
Village of the Giants
(1965)
Genre(s): Comedy, Science Fiction
Kino Lorber| NR – 81 min. – $24.95 | February 22, 2022
Date Published: 02/07/2022 | Author: The Movieman
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Kino Lorber provided me with a free copy of the Blu-ray I reviewed in this Blog Post.
The opinions I share are my own.
THE MOVIE — 1½/5 |
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Plot Synopsis: A small town runs into big problems when teenagers hit a growth spurt, turn into gallivanting Goliaths, lead an anti-elder rebellion and terrify anyone under seven feet tall! Eleven-year-old Genius (RON HOWARD) mixes up some super-goo with his chemistry set, turning cats and ducks into giants. When a group of wild teenagers see the results, they gobble it up too and turn into towering tyrants, challenging adults and making mayhem while the world desperately searches for an anti-teen antidote. Quick Hit Review: Village of the Giants is a movie I’ve heard of thanks to an episode of Mystery Science Theater, so at this point I generally had seen it, just with Mike and his two robot friends. Seeing it without them made it a far more painful experience, mostly because it’s a rather boring film, albeit I did manage to chuckle a couple of times, mainly at the effects work. On the plus side, seeing Beau Bridges and Ron Howard early in their careers was amusing. But that’s about the extent of it. |
SPECIAL FEATURES – 2/5 |
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Features include an Audio Commentary with Film Historian Tim Lucas who actually sat through this and also provided anecdotes on the film’s production and the cast. The Theatrical Trailer () is also included. |
VIDEO – 4½/5 |
| What a time to be alive to see a schlocky fantasy comedy get the HD treatment. In this case, Kino Lorber releases Village of the Giants onto Blu-ray, the movie receiving a new 4K restoration courtesy of StudioCanal. The movie is presented in its original 1.85 widescreen aspect ratio and honestly, it doesn’t look half bad at all. Detail here is sharp and very well defined while colors are generally vibrant and bright, right down to the laughable opening credits sequence, which is just a scene from later in the film, just color graded. I did not notice any significant or obvious signs of artifacting, aliasing, major dust marks or dirt. In addition, the natural film grain is still present giving this some nice texture. |
AUDIO – 4/5 |
| The disc comes with a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 so now we can hear the psychedelic 1960s music better than ever before. In all seriousness, this sounds pretty good with crisp and clear dialogue and some adequate depth for a movie like this. Of course, this won’t wow anyone but still impressive enough. |
OVERALL – 2½/5 |
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Overall, Village of the Giants is sort of your typical fantasy-comedy from the 1960s and easy to see why it was mocked on Mystery Science Theater 3000, but without them, watching on its own is kind of a chore as for the most part it’s fairly dull. |
Check out some more 1080p screen caps by going to page 2. Please note, these do contain spoilers.