Village of the Damned

Amazon.com

The original 1960 version of Village of the Damned is regarded as a classic of science-fiction and horror, and it remains one of the creepiest movies of its kind. Directed with occasional flair by John Carpenter, this 1995 remake trades subtlety for more explicit chills and violence, but the basic premise remains effectively eerie. In the tiny, idyllic town of Midwich, a strange mist causes the entire population to fall asleep, and when everyone awakes the town physician (Christopher Reeve) discovers that 10 women--including his wife and a local teenaged virgin--have mysteriously become pregnant. Their children are all born on the same day, with matching white hair and strange, glowing eyes, growing at an accelerated rate and raising Reeve's suspicion that they're not of Earthly origin. These demonic brats can control minds and wreak havoc with the power of their thoughts--so of course, they must be destroyed! Only Reeve knows how to get the job done, and his performance (the actor's last big-screen role before his paralyzing accident in 1995) grounds this otherwise superfluous remake with enough credibility to hold the viewer's attention. But for the real chills, definitely check out the original version--it's 20 minutes shorter but twice as spooky. --Jeff Shannon

Customer Reviews:

Good movie.......2007-04-25

For some reason this movie seems to always get bad reviews from critics and viewers. I'm not exactly sure why, but I think that people expect something different from John Carpenter and this wasn't it. They compare it to his other movies rather than looking at it on it's own.

I think that the movie was great, very well done in the way that it was shot and the way that the actors portrayed each character. It's interesting to see the different twist that John Carpenter put on the original novel by John Wyndam, "The Midwich Cuckoos." The tone of the movie is very eerie, with everything shot in a sort of gray, monotone atmosphere. The leader of the children is absolutely chilling and gives a great performance. I think that she really makes the movie with how she speaks and acts throughout the film. People just aren't used to seeing some seven year old look as if she could snap you in half with a blink of an eye.. literally.

The visual affects are awesome. Who doesn't like to see crazy glowing eyes? It's just cool looking. I highly recommend this movie to anyone not looking to rip it apart just because it's not 'gory' or 'violent' enough for them.

Village of the Darned.......2006-12-12

Although the most prolific of the 70s directors who worked their way up from superior exploitation to the mainstream, John Carpenter's flame may have burned the brightest but it also burned the most briefly before he descended into lifeless hackwork. Even the more promising projects floundered when confronted with his increasingly pedestrian handling. His 1995 remake of Village of the Damned is a classic example. Ill-advisedly relocated to a California coastal town inhabited by Superman, Luke Skywalker and Crocodile Dundee's girlfriend, the special effects are more prominent and the body count is multiplied more than ten times as villagers burn themselves to death, impale themselves, doctors blind or perform autopsies on themselves, all staged with remarkable flatness and a complete lack of atmosphere or foreboding. A few good ideas are thrown in, but aside from one schoolroom sequence and the foolproof "brick wall" ending, it's desperately dull and under characterised stuff that feels like it was made by a wage slave reluctantly punching a time clock every day. More like Village of the Darned, the most mysterious thing about it is just how Michael Pare managed to get such prominent billing when he doesn't even make it past the title sequence.

the morals issues and questions are still there.......2006-09-18

this remake of the 60's sci fi classic still poses the same questions of the movie viewer as the classic. issues like conformity of innocence, fascism,communism, and the like are still there but not as much. the creep factor comes from the stated elements above. thats why the two movies the original and the remake are good sc fi b-movies they ask you thoses hard questions and not a soap opera like new battlestar galactia. i use the title the village of the damned as a metaphor for chicago because it lose a certain something like new york and l.a. america becoming grey goo of mediocrity and conformity. enough of that but carpenter is underrated to me at least because he don't turned out tendy kiddyporn horror flicks. like scream or i know what you did last summer. its real horror like full moon movies.

9 Eerie children........2006-02-27

John Carpenter directed movie based on John Wyndham's novel `The Midwich Cuckoos'. After an entire small town blacks out 10 women give birth to gifted children. Only 9 live. As the children get older people seem to be very accident prone in their presence.
Lindsey Haun as the children's leader Mara is just creepy. The one scene to best sum up the movie has Dr. Alan Chaffee (Christopher Reeve) talking to Jill McGowan (Linda Kozlowski). She's trying to convince him to teach the children separately from the normal children. Dr. Chaffee; "What could I possibly teach them?" Jill answers, "Humanity." It should've been a great movie. Unfortunately Christopher Reeve's excellent acting was overpowered by Kirstie Alley's incredibly horrible acting. Why any director would use her to play a hard shell government doctor is beyond me. This movie had four things going for it; 1. It was based on Wyndham's classic novel. 2. John Carpenter directed it. 3. Christopher Reeve stars in it. And 4. The children were just plain creepy. So why didn't it work? Kirstie Alley is one of the worst actresses ever and just ruined the Dr. Susan Verner character. Carpenter never really pushed for any suspense. More of A Sci-Fi B-movie then a Horror. Worth catching on AMC or TCM but not worthy for my collection, which is unfortunate when you consider that Assault on Precinct 13 (1976), Halloween (1978), The Fog (1980) and The Thing (1982) along with a few others have made the list. Watch for Mark Hamill as Reverend George.
Beware the Children.

OK movie but why was it rated R?.......2006-02-01

I thought the movie was OK really, not as good asthe 1960 classic. Not even on par with Carpenter's prior work. I do love the soundtrack though, Carpenter always seems to come up with good music for his movies even when they stink.

But I really don't know why this movie was rated R. There is absolutely nothing as far as violence to warrant the rating, and certainly nothing in the way of suspense or thrills to scare anyone. This really should have been PG, but I guess Carpenter thought nobody would go see his movie if it was PG so he pushed for a R rating. Turns out nobody saw the movie either way.

Village of the Damned/Children of the Damned

Average customer rating:

Review Of The Damned
Incredible double feature
Two classic movies
"You are thinking of a brick wall. You are thinking of a brick wall.."
Alien Brats!

Village of the Damned/Children of the Damned
Starring: George Sanders , Barbara Shelley , Martin Stephens (II) , Michael Gwynn , and Laurence Naismith
Director: Wolf Rilla , and Anton Leader
Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B00027JYMG
Release Date: 2004-08-10

Amazon.com

What's scarier than scary kids? Village of the Damned is the definitive scary-kid classic, a truly unsettling film drawn from John Wyndham's novel The Midwich Cuckoos. The brilliant opening sequence depicts the sudden and temporary paralysis of a small English hamlet, which is followed by the town's women becoming mysteriously pregnant. The spawn of this occurrence are a dozen eerie, blond-headed children, who are either gifted, evil, or "the world's new people." A splendid outing, not least in the way it catches parental anxiety about this small new stranger in one's home. (It was remade by John Carpenter in 1995.)

Children of the Damned follows up with a story about six more creepy kids, brought from all over the globe to huddle in a old church in London. An excellent opening half-hour gets bogged down in the movie's global-political ambitions (it's very much a cold war offering), but it has its share of shivery moments--the sight of the six youngsters striding down a London street as though they controlled the world is a chiller. But where's the blond hair? The two films are different in tone; Village feels like a fifties sci-fi offering, with an old-school star (George Sanders) and classical style; Children is a film of the sixties, with hipper techniques, urban setting, and young actors Ian Hendry and Alan Badel. But both have those damned kids. --Robert Horton

Customer Reviews:

Review Of The Damned.......2007-05-13

I saw both movies in a movie theater when I was a kid. I remember loving both. When I saw they were released on one DVD I jumped at the chance to buy it. I was slightly apprehensive about how much I'd enjoy them because I've learned that some movies that I really enjoyed as a kid I don't find very entertaining as an adult.
Yet, I loved both movies again. Very dark stories, well acted, well directed. You should get this DVD if you're thinking of it. You'll be glad you did.

Incredible double feature.......2007-04-24

I first saw the 1995 version of Village of the Damned when it first came back and really enjoyed it. It was just something I had never seen before and I thought that the children were incredibly freaky and that the story was very interesting and one that I wanted to know more about.. like who wrote it and where they got the idea from. After doing a little research on the Internet I discovered that it was based on a book by John Wyndam and that there had been an original version back in the 60's, so of course I jumped at the chance to check both out to see how different they were compared to the '95 movie. I wasn't disappointed!

This DVD features the original 1960 version of Village of the Damned and it's 1963 'sequel' Children of the Damned. Two incredibly classic films that you won't want to miss if you are a fan of original horror and science fiction films. Both are beautifully shot and have an eerie tone to them, especially VotD because of the likeness in the children, their white-blonde hair and glowing eyes. The second movie is the weaker of the two but still worth watching as it puts a new twist on the original story and film. The children are not similar in appearance to each other, but come from all around the world (different nationalities) and come together for a pretty violent showdown in an old abandoned church building where the government is set to destroy them because of the powers they have.

I highly recommend these movies, you won't be disappointed!

Two classic movies.......2007-01-03

Two essential John Wyndham adaptations. Village of the Damned is a good movie, and pays credit to the original story. Children of the Damned is not as much a sequel as it as a new twist to the same story, but in any case is well worth seeing. One should also include the movie Day of the Triffids based on another book by John Wyndham.

"You are thinking of a brick wall. You are thinking of a brick wall..".......2006-12-04

Despite having a name that sounds like a German-Japanese dinosaur movie and a drastically reduced budget after MGM got nervous over the possible reaction from the Catholic Legion of Decency, Wolf Rilla managed to deliver a genuine low-budget classic that makes light of its limitations in Village of the Damned. Surprisingly faithful to the source (The Midwich Cuckoos) despite the many changes, it's another variation on novelist's John Wyndham's big theme, the battle for supremacy between two species - in this case the human race and the intellectually superior children spawned after a mysterious alien intervention that sees a small village rendered unconscious in a memorably staged sequence that combines the mundane with the inexplicable. Rather than exploiting the premise and the dangerous telekinetic abilities of the children for shock effects (although they do demonstrate them in a couple of memorable sequences), for the most part the film is as much concerned with the twin dilemmas of whether the children are a potential boon or a threat to the human race and of finding a way to defeat or destroy an enemy that not only knows what you're thinking but which is still a part of your own family. With an excellent screenplay, tightly constructed and imaginatively directed with a great ending - "You are thinking of a brick wall. You are thinking of a brick wall.." - it holds up remarkably well nearly a half century on.

Children of the Damned is morally and politically more ambitious still, exploring the notion that humans are perhaps far worse than the cuckoos in their midst. Unfortunately it's also very dull, good performances from Alfred Burke and Ian Hendry notwithstanding. There's no real involvement or forward momentum, and it exists in a vacuum - the events in the first film are never even acknowledged. But the saving grace of the Region 1 DVD at least is screenwriter John Briley's audio commentary (neither commentary is included on the foreign issues), dealing with the themes of the movie as well as taking detailed diversions into the effect of the blacklist on Hollywood, the exile of US talent to Britain and the artistic and political freedom that MGM UK's sheep farming activities gave them! (There's also a brief harbinger of things to come with a photo of Gandhi overlooking Indian politicians debating killing the children in the film: Briley would go on to write Attenborough's biopic.)

Alien Brats!.......2006-11-06

I saw "Village of the Damned" for the first time back in 1965 and had nightmares for a while. On this day, the hairs on the back of my neck still stand up when the eyes on those little alien brats light up! You know a movie is a classic when it makes such an impression after all those years. When I saw that this DVD has the sequel as well, I just couldn't pass it up! This is a great DVD for classic movie buffs (like myself) out there! Definetely get it!

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