Sunday, October 25, 2015

The Village of the Damned

1960 (****)

The small English town of Midwitch is affected by a highly mysterious occurrence: all living creatures are rendered unconscious for several hours at once on the same day. There seem to be no ill effects initially, but a couple of months later it becomes clear that all the women of childbearing age, married and unmarried, are pregnant.  There is a lot of fear and uncertainty in the village about the pregnancies, but when the children are born, they appear perfect in every way, with just a few anomalies. However, as time goes by, it becomes clear that these children are very different from their peers, and a potential menace to the entire town.

I was pleasantly surprised by this one!  Based on the date and the trailer, I expected something more campy or B-movie, but instead Village of the Damned is a solid, unsentimental take on its premise.  The mysterious kids are thoroughly creepy and the villagers (for the most part) respond in relatively realistic ways to each stage of the action.


6 comments:

Octopunk said...

I really like this movie, it's dry but creepy. My favorite part is in the beginning where the army is testing out the border of the Unconscious Zone, with canaries on sticks and soldiers with rope around them.

The last time I saw this I imagined a scenario in which the children were successfully captured and contained, kept isolated and minded by robots so the government could study and use them. Then when they're teenagers they bust out.

Catfreeek said...

I really like this one as well but I'm not a huge fan of the remake, it lost some of the original film's creep factor. Great pick!

Catfreeek said...

I just noticed that my profile pic makes me look like the dark haired adult version of the blond kids. There you go Octo, their hair turns dark during puberty.

JPX said...

A classic! I'm glad you checked this out, AC! There's a remake (of course) but I don't recall it being any good.

Trevor said...

There's also The Simpsons take off - "The Bloodening", I think it was called?

DKC said...

Good one, AC! Those kids look pretty damn creepy to me.

Malevolent

 2018  ***1/2 It's 1986 for some reason, and a team of paranormal investigators are making a big name for themselves all over Scotland. ...