Ronny Howard, Mad Scientist

One night each December, TCM honors a bunch of people who weren't necessarily well-enough known, or had enough films, to do a traditional programming tribute. Last year, that included producer/director Bert I. Gordon, who died in March 2023 aged 100. Gordon was known for schlocky but fun low-budget scifi and horror. The movie TCM selected in Gordon's honor was emblematic of this: Village of the Giants.

The movie opens with an establishing sequence of a bunch of teens joyriding out in the middle of nowhere on a rainy night, the sort of scene that gives the impression the this is the sort of movie conceived with the idea of playing to the drive-in crowd where teens would make out. The group is led by Fred (Jeff Bridges in a very early role) and includes three of his male friends (including Mickey Rooney's son Tim), and each of their girlfriends. This being a rainy night, the road is washed out, and the teens, having gone off the road because of the weather, have to walk to town to try to get help.

Meanwhie, in town, Mike (Tommy Kirk) is with his girlfriend Nancy, along with best friend Horsey (Johnny Crawford) and his girlfriend, while kinda-sorta babysitting his kid brother, nicknamed Genius (that's Ron Howard when he was still going by Ronny) because he likes to play with one of those toy chemistry sets that were a bigger thing back in the 1960s than today. Genius acts like he knows what he's doing, although that's not that certain. He creates some new-to-him compound without being quite sure how he did it. Because of the substance's properties, Genius gives it the highly scientific name "Goo".

And then some of the Goo gets spilled and a couple of animals eat it up, with the result that they're subjected to horrendously bad special effects which make them giant animals, because that's one of the most original plot devices known to sci-fi movies.

Fred and his friends show up and find the oversized animals, which gives Fred an idea. He'd like the secret of the stuff, because there's a lot of money to be made in such a substance. Eventually, he and his friends are able to get one of the test tubes which presumably contains the Goo, and abscond with it to the theater where they holed up because they couldn't find any other place to stay.

And then, they do another terribly stupid thing: they decide to experiment on themselves by ingesting the Goo. You can guess what happens, and that, impressed with their new height, decide to take over the village, leading Mike and Horsey to come up with a way to outwit the giants.

Village of the Giants is the sort of movie that is objectively terrible, with a dumb and unoriginal plot, bad acting, and lousy special effects. But it all adds up to turn the movie into one of those films that's so bad it's good. Part of it, I think is the fact that there are a couple of famous people here (Bridges and Howard definitely, along with Crawford if you've seen The Rifleman) in what was decidedly not their finest hour. Part of it is that despite the unoriginality, it's also quite unintentionally funny.

So definitely watch Village of the Giants if you get the chance. The original, not what Mystery Science Theater 3000 did to it.