"Village of the Damned" (1960)

In a small English village in Midwich, during one particular day every living person and thing falls into a deep sleep through some kind of unknowable force for several hours. Some months later, it materialises that every woman capable of child-bearing in this village is pregnant. Once the children are born, they appear to grow very quickly and possess the exact same blond hair and seemingly penetrating eyes which they then use to make people do what they want them to do. The film was directed by Wolf Rilla and based on the novel, “The Midwich Cuckoos” by John Wyndham.

We are thrown straight into some conundrum within the first scene, that’s a little creepy. A man is on the phone and suddenly collapses. We move outside to a man driving around on a lawnmower/tractor when we realise he’s unconscious. The camera moves along a road and we are given glimpses of all these people unconscious. We are taken into the phone’s operator building – people mysteriously all unconscious. The fact that there’s absolutely no music bar the sounds of the phone ringing and a tap running, just a series of seemingly random unconscious people, gives the scene an eerie feel (particularly when we are taken into a house with a music record skipping) and of course arouses our curiosity to find out what the hell is going on! I’ve never seen anything quite like it. It’s genius, really. We’d never have something so simple in modern horror films, it must be all blood and all action...but this is extremely effective. The scene is made when we get a zoomed out shot of the street and see two bodies just lying dilapidated on the footpath with not another soul around – nothing – And then the church bell begins to ring and the camera moves slowly across through the branches of a tree towards the church, where it then zooms in on a clock which reads exactly 11 o’clock. We instantly know that this time has significance and we want to know why. Then the opening credits appear over the clock with just the bell ringing very ominously. It completely sets up the mood and tone of the movie in such a manner that as I say, I’ve never seen before. Genius.

It’s established that one of our main characters goes by the name of Anthea, and once she’s had her baby their dog proceeds to growl at the crib but is told to be quiet and goes to sit sadly in the corner (so cute!!) But, as we would later find out, it would have done Anthea’s husband to listen to their dog! Animals in movies almost always seem to pick up on these paranormal existences first...

There were times that the pace of this movie was a little rushed, as though the story was being over-viewed as opposed to getting right into it...but that is possibly on account of how many main characters there is. We are focusing on a group of people, as opposed to one or two which is the case more often. What also struck me that could have been looked into more is the lack of fear in the adults at these children’s abilities. They seem to be completely aware that, yes, there is something strange about these children, and yes, they are very extraordinary, but that’s it. This doesn’t appear to shock them a whole lot, but rather they are appear almost expectant of it. I think this also contributed to the story feeling simply over-viewed sometimes. I mean, there’s a scene where Anthea’s husband (I think, I was a bit confused on who was who) is talking to all the children and remarks that they can see into his mind, read his thoughts, and when David confirms this there is no huge emotion from Anthea’s husband, just acceptance and he moves on with what he is speaking to them about. I was just expecting more of a reaction given how frightening one would have assumed having your thoughts read would be.

This film is often categorised as a horror and I’m not entirely sure that it should be. – Although the idea of it is certainly creatively unsettling. It’s often categorised as science fiction, which fits more, because due to the adult’s toned down fear of the children, we as an audience are not going to be scared of them either. If the characters in the movie don’t find them particularly frightening, just know that they’re bad, then that’s how we’ll see them too, and it stays just a movie. That being said, those moments in which their eyes begin to glow are pretty ominous and slightly creepy. I think this works better actually when the movie is in black and white. A remake was done in 1995 of this movie in colour, and frankly, all the children look like dolls and it’s a bit distracting from the story. 

I would say it’s a good enough film, not the best I’ve seen, but not a bad movie either.

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