The Valley | |
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Directed by | Peter Jackson |
Starring |
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Edited by | Peter Jackson |
Release date
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Running time
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20 minutes |
Country | New Zealand |
Language | English |
The Valley is an amateur film made by then fifteen-year-old Peter Jackson in 1976 with his friends. It was strongly influenced by the films of Ray Harryhausen. It was filmed silent on a Super 8 camera and was shown on the children's television show Spot On.
The Valley is about four prospectors who walk into a valley and unwittingly enter a rift in the time/space continuum. As they journey down the valley, one of the prospectors (Ian Middleton) gets taken away by a harpy. Another prospector (Peter Jackson) falls off a cliff. The two remaining (Ken Hammon and Andrew Neal) have to fight and destroy a cyclops. They build a raft, float across a lake, and see a building in ruins. This ruin, unbeknownst to them, is the Beehive building of Wellington city – they haven't travelled back in time but ahead into a post-apocalyptic world taken over by mythical beasts.