Brandon's Cult Movie Reviews: JACK THE GIANT KILLER 

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Never make a ray harryhausen movie without ray harryhausen

18:00 Brandon the type of guy to go "She is a red flag, but red is my favorite color ..."

Context is everything. I'm 65. I saw Jack in the theater at a kiddie matinee in 1967 before I ever saw 7th Voyage. As a matter of fact when I saw the ad for a "home movie"version of 7th Voyage (8mm, one reel/silent B & W excerpt from the feature) in the back of Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine, the cyclops looked kinda like Jack's Coroman. So I begged my parents to buy me that reel. It was SO AWESOME, a real mind-blower! But 7th Voyage never played on TV in the 60s. So I finally saw it at a fantasy film convention in the early 70s... this time in sound, color, full length. Mind blown again! I started experimenting with stop-motion on Super 8 and the results were pretty darn good. As an adult I became a filmmaker, and had the pleasure of interviewing Ray for a documentary I was making about his mentor Willis (King Kong/Mighty Joe Young) O'Brien. We became friends. He lived in England but whenever he came to LA, we'd get together for dinner. Ray was a real gentleman and a great raconteur.

Old man in retirement home on The Simpsons: "Didn't there used to be a beanstalk in this story?"

When you had the Leprechaun declare he's off to the hood and then he'll be back, that got a good belly laugh out of me.

"...asks chimp Peter to pretend ropes are somebody's face." lmao

"Later that day-for-night." Priceless.

16:05 Dude! It's a magic whip that destroys skeletons! That's totally a Castlevania reference!

As a resident of Cornwall I can safely say its not that sunny here anymore

Golden Voyage of Sinbad has Caroline Munroe. I'd like to see the whole series done

20:00 To be fair, they were sometimes depicted looking something like that in Medieval Europe

Evil Elaine's fashions from the Princess Dragon Mom collection!

The Witches look like the Banshee from Darby O'Gill and The Little People.

I shared this video with my dad. He's a 50 year vet in stop motion/post production. This was his response: He's pretty funny. Pointed out some things I never thought of. All video versions of this are cut off on the left. It was shot super 35mm flat but titles are at academy. I have a proper 16mm copy that is framed correctly. Ironically the musical version is properly framed. I have both versions on blu-ray.

I actually really like how this movie includes an Irish leprechaun, a Scandinavian viking, and Roman ruins. All those peoples have history with real world England (where real world Cornwall is) and their inclusion makes the world feel larger and more historical than the Sinbad setting, which only drew from the Arabian Middle-East despite many different real world peoples and locations Arab sailors could have visited and interacted with

The best joke was the reference to “ what opera doc?”

One of my favourite Rifftrax episodes is their riff of this movie. The movie itself was pretty fun as a kid also

I'm with ya: Evil Princess was definitely an upgrade!

The sequence where the phantoms attack the ship scared the absolute crap out of young me (I'm guessing I was around 8).

3:24 🎶 What Happened? *We thought we could do it, but we were wrong!* *We have failed, master, we have failed!* The Princess... Where is she? 🎶

Pendragon, huh? That's King Arthur's family name.

I feel like a compilation of Brandon saying “Huh, his one weakness!” Would be a great way to end a week.

This is the closest thing we'll ever get to a live action Castlevania movie.

These effects remind me a lot of the movie Darby O'Gill and the Little People.

The princess turning evil reminds me of Legend.

15:30 Plus evil Pendragon breaks off a (gargoyle) dragon's teeth, tosses them on the ground like he's sowing seeds, & a squad of evil mooks emerge magically from the spot, which is totally different from when evil Aeëtes gathers the Hydra's teeth, tosses them on the ground like he's sowing seeds, & a squad of evil skeletons emerge magically from the spot. ... wait, what do you mean Jack the Giant Killer (1962) came out *before* Jason & the Argonauts (1963)?

How is this channel not more popular?

The glowing skull woman with the flowers freaked me out as a kid.

Part of me is a little surprised that there actually weren’t more movies trying to cash in on Harryhausen.

I remember watching the remade version of this movie that had a young Obi-Wan Kenobi in it.

13:56 It would of been Awesome if he said "They tryin to Steal my Lucky Charms."😂👍💯

1. Has to venture through a castle to save a loved one from an evil magic user with a cape 2.uses a whip to destroy his enemies 3. final boss turns into a demonic dragon like creature holy crap, Jack is a Belmont!

"I'll give you three wishes!" "I wish Elaine was back, I wish she was no longer evil, and I wish Pendragon was dead." Credits

The magic whip would have been perfect for a Castlevania reference.

5:18 Definitely wasn't expecting a TADC reference on this channel

My grandma had a lot of VHS tapes. This was one of them. And we watched it a lot.

It’d be cool if the princess could alternate forms at will. The possibilities are endless.❤

Since it was asked... I liked her better evil. And super psyched this movie made it as an episode.

But wait? What about our queen, Goddess Caroline Munro and her journeys with Sinbad? 🥰

11:28 "It almost gives this part a trippy, psychedelic vibe." Yeah, this movie may have been released in 1961, but it definitely doesn't belong to "the Sixties," so that part really stands out...

This movie has big Rankin/Bass energy

As a kid, I liked the movie, but I also remember thinking after seeing it, how it was like watching a dark version of Gumby. The creatures were so cheaply made and dumb looking, I added them to my list of stupid looking monster. I put them right there on top with the ugliest looking turkey in "The Giant Claw" and the weird eyed crabs in "Attack of the Crab Monsters."

Fun fact: "Cormoran" is not some random name, its the actual name of the giant Jack killed in the Cornwall legend which is the origin tale.

I always find it funny when a movie isn't known for it's director or lead performer but someone else who worked on the movie, Ray Harryhausen stole the show on pretty much every movie he worked on thanks to his great monster effects.

My sister and I grew up watching the musical version - I didn't even find out there was a non-musical version until I was in my 30's!

Isn't that the norm in most jobs? Perform beyond expectations, and they'll increase your workload. At least in his case he got a promotion out of it (I expect Knight comes with a higher salary than Peasant Farm Boy) 😊

15:16: Speaking of that, the main effects Animator of this film, Lloyd L. Vaughan, was also known for working as a hand drawn animator for Chuck Jones with the Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies series, as well as How the Grinch Stole Christmas

I love Brandon Tenold's recent venture into the 1950s fantasy films. Even if it involves a movie with Ray Harryhausen.

I remember finding the fight between the two headed giant and kraken on youtube and watching it over and over again

16:07 Are we sure Jack's last name isn't Belmont?

For all that it ain't that bad, always liked the fact it was filmed in californwall.

Brandon: "The best part of waking up..." 🤣🤣🤣 Oh, and yes, she was way hotter when she was evil!

"What could be more intimidating than a cyclops? ...I've got it! A biclops!"

The witch voice-over from Army of Darkness is an instant thumbs up. But, man, the knights that look like they really have to pee was HILARIOUS 😆😆😂

"Screw Folgers, the best part of waking up is fucking giants." "Thanks ye Jack, it's off to the hood, but I'll be back."

Gotta admit, when I was a kid those witches scared the shit outta me. Been wondering where I saw them from. Thanks for reopening that painful scar again, Brandon. Lol

12:55 -- When I saw this movie for the first time, my first thought during this scene was that she looked like one of Jack Kirby's villainesses from the THOR or FOURTH WORLD comics.

Great to see a review of this classic - to a kid in the 1970s anyway! I can remember being terrified by the clown ogre thing and the evil princess . Sadly not quite the same experience now when I watch it and I’d forgotten how shoddy that dragon and sea monster thing was! Oh yeah also terrified by the witches 😂😂

Thanks for making this a great Saturday morning!

Off to the hood? Now I'm imagining the leprechaun as the one from the movie series, and he solves Jack's problems by just murdering everyone horribly...

Yes, that one entity was blowing a lot of hot air🗣🗣🗣🗣

To be fair, I'm PRETTY sure that granting three wishes IS actually a Leprechaun thing, too

Project Unlimited did most of the make-up and special effects for the television series 'The Outer Limits'. They also did the stop motion dinosaur for the Twilight Zone episode, 'The Odyssey of Flight 33'.

🎶Jack the Giant Killer, he kills giants!🎶

Yes! Those 'witches' could have been made by the Krofft Brothers. But they work. The claymation monsters in this never scared me but I found the witches delightfully creepy. I think that might have been accentuated by the use of what I call 'spooky sopranos' in the incidental music.

Holy fuck. A Brandon tenold and fanboy Flicks video both in the same day! Sometimes life is pretty cool.

I grew up watching the musical version in the mid 70s (early cable). When I rewatched it in the 90s, my first thought was, "Where are the songs?"

It's probably entirely coincidental, but there are moments where the film almost feels like a precursor to Castlevania. The hero has a magic whip which he uses against armored knights, the bad guy has a winged monster form that he turns into during the big fight, and the castle full of monsters crumbles when the villain is destroyed.

You could have made a Castlevania joke with that Magic Whip and the castle dying when the villain dies.

I saw this as a kid when it was released. I've never forgotten it, but I couldn't honestly say I remembered all of the plot details. I saw it again on BD recently and it held up fairly well. Of course, it's not Harryhausen quality, but it could have been a lot less entertaining.

"Edwards Small present a B I Gordon film." That's the way it should have played out.

2:46 Actually, it was originally named "Jack the Giant Killer" during production. Heck, there's a teaser poster that has the original logo/title set within the clouds, and it had its original release date of June 2012.

I didn't know there was a Musical version. Great movie from my youth despite it already being old at the time. Judi Meredith was soo cute and it feels like a Warhammer movie.

9:34 that sounds awesome!

those witches would be great as the Three Witches in a Macbeth film especially the bony one

"Later that day for night." That gave me a good chuckle.

I saw this when I was a child in the 1960s, but it wasn't shown again for so many years that I'd begun to think I had only imagined it -- until I saw a short piece on it in some film magazine. It was so nice to learn it was real.

I thought for a moment he was reviewing the 2013 film. Thank goodness its one. Much more fun movie.

That dragon does look cooler in poster, but I wouldn't have guessed it was supposed to be a dragon :D

That self moving toy is actually based on whe Henry the eight got a clockwork bird when he was gratulated for inheriting the crown

Thanks for highlighting the good points. Sure, no Harryhausen, but it’s a pretty cool knockoff, nonetheless. (Side note, I love the theme song the Rifftrax guys do during the opening credits of their version. Fun stuff 👍🏻)

I like the TADC and leprechaun in da hood references 🤣

Saw this movie as a kid, thought it was brilliant. When I saw it as an adult, my Inner Brandon was in full force!

I do like the design of the two headed giant, it’s fun and interesting

13:35 is that Ragnar our favorite Viking! Oh my!

Yeah, the princess looks so much better as an evil monster girl.

Idk, way those guards vanished after he hits them with a whip, I'm just thinking the first live action CastleVania was weird. 😉😂🤣 And yeah, Brandon, I was really digging that red outfit evil princess was wearing. Anyways, enjoyed this video, thank you, Brandon.

16:05 I was expecting a Castlevania reference, given all the mythological monsters

Look about you! Seize the Bone!

Good follow up to Sinbad. (heh-heh, I called it, too!) I saw this in a indoor theatre when I was a kid. I sat in the 3rd row (in the front). When that giant reared up it scared me! From the front of the theatre it was monstrously large. The movie kept me terrified and cowering in my seat, lol. I never forgot it.

I saw this in elementary school back in the 1970s, so I always see it through nostalgia colored glasses. It's pretty heavily laden with cheeze, but I'm a member of that cult he mentioned.

"Terrifying dragon! ADORABLE puppy nose though!"~Rifftrax

You should take a look at Darby O’Gill and the Little People. Sean Connery, Leprechauns, singing. A Scot playing an Irishman. No diaper in this one, though. I used to watch it all the time when I was a kid.

I wonder if the Whip in this movie inspired Castlevania Belmont Whip

Considering what the whips does to enemies I'd ask if this was meant to be a Castlevania movie but this came out about two decades before that.

I've never been THIS early for one of Brandons videos.

17:16 It’s a cardinal rule in Hollywood to never work with kids or animals if you can help it, and this movie managed to do both.

Great riffs, Brandon! Thanks for doing this one. I guessed it as did probably many of us when you said you’d be doing a “Harryhausen movie without Harryhausen.” I have to confess: I love JACK THE GIANT KILLER. Maybe because I first saw it when it came out in the theater when I was 7 years old, and saw it on the theater and fell in love with it then. And I had not yet seen the Ray Harryhausen classics. So, though now I appreciate how this is like “Dollar Tree Harryhausen”, I still love it. I also love the riffs on it, both from Rifftrax, which I went to see when they did it as one of their RIFFTRAX LIVE shows Fathom Events, and from Brandon here. I have the Kino Lorber Blu-ray of it with the awesome commentary by Mario Bava scholar Tim Lucas, who always does great commentaries, especially on fantasy and horror. And loves it like I do. I also love the fact that that Blu-ray also includes the actually terrible version with the songs shoehorned in. Which begs for riff on it even more. And so I do. Thanks again for riffing on this beloved “classic” (well, at least for some of us). Rabbi Steve aka Patreon member Stephen Vale. PS: oh, and I do like the Princess better when she was evil.

It could have been a great plot twist if the leader of the mutiny was Peter. Jack: "Peter... You little bastard..."