Village of the Damned is set in the small English village of Midwich where professor Gordon Zelaby (George Sanders) is on the phone to his Brother-in-law Major Alan Bernard (Michael Gwynn) when he suddenly collapses, on the other end of the phone Alan becomes worried & sets off for Midwich when he can't raise anyone there. As he approaches the village he meets the local police man (Peter Vaughan) who also says he can't contact anyone in the village, as the copper rides off ahead of Alan he suddenly collapses as if he suddenly fainted. Upon witnessing this Alan calls in his army mates to seal off the area, they send people in but they too just collapse for no apparent reason. Then just as suddenly as they collapsed everyone in Midwich wakes up without any recollection of what happened, no one has any clue what went on but everyone seemed fine. Then, a few months later Dr. Willers (Laurence Naismith) reports that every woman in Midwich capable of child birth is pregnant. If that wasn't strange enough when the children are born they don't seem human...
This British American co-production was co-written & directed by Wolf Rilla & is a fairly effective little chiller from the 60's although I'm not as keen on it as some of the glowing comments on the IMDb would suggest other's are. The script by Rilla, Stirling Sillipahnt & Ronald Kinnoch was based on the novel 'The Midwich Cuckoos' by John Wyndham (which I have not read so I cannot compare the film to it) & starts off brilliantly, the opening sequence where the entire village of Midwich suddenly collapses is fantastic & hooked me straight away, I was eagerly awaiting an explanation which never came unfortunately. I was hoping the film would give me some cool & clever reasoning behind the events in Midwich & the subsequent birth of some strange children but beyond some vague theories by Government officials it never did & that's my biggest problem with Village of the Damned, when it had finished I felt sort of cheated, I felt like the filmmakers had this fantastic concept & idea but didn't know how to explain it. At just over 70 minutes the film moves along at nice pace & is never boring, the character's are OK & the film also tries to raise various moral issues surrounding the children & what the authorities plan to do with them. It's a good film, a very watchable & entertaining film but I felt there were far too many unanswered questions, which to be fair some people may like but personally I didn't.
Director Rilla does a good job, there's a nice close knit English community feel to it & the film has a pretty eerie atmosphere to it. Now, the children themselves, personally I thought they looked pretty comical with they're obviously bad fitting blonde wigs. They might have been scary 40 odd years ago but times & the world has moved on, these days in Britian we have 16 year olds stealing cars, going for a joyride & ending up killing a baby only to get a couple of years in jail because of the way British law is at the moment, now the fact we have real life scum like that walking our streets is scarier than anything in Village of the Damned. Maybe that was a bad analogy but my point remains valid, in today's society a few children with badly fitting wigs & dubbed British upper class accents are just not scary at all.
With a supposed budget of about $200,000 Village of the Damned is a well made film with nice production values. The acting was alright.
Village of the Damned is a good film of that I agree but there were just too many gaps in the plot for me to be totally satisfied with it as the end credits rolled. A good sci-fi/horror film but in my opinion not as good as many like to make out. Children of the Damned (1963) was a loose sequel while John Carpenter directed a remake Village of the Damned (1995).
This British American co-production was co-written & directed by Wolf Rilla & is a fairly effective little chiller from the 60's although I'm not as keen on it as some of the glowing comments on the IMDb would suggest other's are. The script by Rilla, Stirling Sillipahnt & Ronald Kinnoch was based on the novel 'The Midwich Cuckoos' by John Wyndham (which I have not read so I cannot compare the film to it) & starts off brilliantly, the opening sequence where the entire village of Midwich suddenly collapses is fantastic & hooked me straight away, I was eagerly awaiting an explanation which never came unfortunately. I was hoping the film would give me some cool & clever reasoning behind the events in Midwich & the subsequent birth of some strange children but beyond some vague theories by Government officials it never did & that's my biggest problem with Village of the Damned, when it had finished I felt sort of cheated, I felt like the filmmakers had this fantastic concept & idea but didn't know how to explain it. At just over 70 minutes the film moves along at nice pace & is never boring, the character's are OK & the film also tries to raise various moral issues surrounding the children & what the authorities plan to do with them. It's a good film, a very watchable & entertaining film but I felt there were far too many unanswered questions, which to be fair some people may like but personally I didn't.
Director Rilla does a good job, there's a nice close knit English community feel to it & the film has a pretty eerie atmosphere to it. Now, the children themselves, personally I thought they looked pretty comical with they're obviously bad fitting blonde wigs. They might have been scary 40 odd years ago but times & the world has moved on, these days in Britian we have 16 year olds stealing cars, going for a joyride & ending up killing a baby only to get a couple of years in jail because of the way British law is at the moment, now the fact we have real life scum like that walking our streets is scarier than anything in Village of the Damned. Maybe that was a bad analogy but my point remains valid, in today's society a few children with badly fitting wigs & dubbed British upper class accents are just not scary at all.
With a supposed budget of about $200,000 Village of the Damned is a well made film with nice production values. The acting was alright.
Village of the Damned is a good film of that I agree but there were just too many gaps in the plot for me to be totally satisfied with it as the end credits rolled. A good sci-fi/horror film but in my opinion not as good as many like to make out. Children of the Damned (1963) was a loose sequel while John Carpenter directed a remake Village of the Damned (1995).