Horrorfest 2010: Village of the Damned

VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED is another one I used to always see listed in all the books about horror films I used to read as a kid. I clearly remember seeing the photographs of the creepy kids with glowing eyes. But, since it didn't star a famous monster or a big horror name, I never checked it out until now.

Turns out, VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED is great. I was hooked from the first few minutes. Going in not really knowing the premise, beyond the fact that creepy kids eventually show up, was very rewarding. The opening sequence suddenly starts without warning, showing all the people of a small village in England suddenly dropping unconscious in mid-action. The film cuts all around town, showing people in the middle of phone calls, ironing dresses, driving tractors -- suddenly dropping asleep. The town is eerily silent. A record skips over and over in one of those houses.

The military is called in to check out the phenomenon and they quickly find that any living thing that steps within a certain perimeter of the village suddenly drops unconscious. Cows in fields fall on their sides, airplanes fall out of the sky, even military dudes with respirators drop to the ground if they get too close.

And, as soon as the phenomenon suddenly appears, it suddenly disappears, and everyone in the village wakes up, confused but unharmed. Otherwise, everything seems normal, until all the fertile women suddenly show up pregnant without explanation. One woman has only slept with her husband, but her kid clearly isn't his. Another has been separated from her husband for the better part of a year. The women are disturbed, the doctor is disturbed -- the whole town is abuzz. The pregnancies proceed at a fast pace, the kids are born a little larger then normal kids, and develop rapidly.

Three years later, they're all approaching adolescence and apparently abnormally genius, still with no explanation. Scientists guess maybe energy from space came down and caused the phenomenon, others think it might be some kind of sudden genetic mutation, which doesn't explain the sudden unconsciousness of the whole town. It also doesn't explain similar circumstances in other countries across the globe where similar batches of pregnancies sprang up over night.

The kids are all healthy, mature beyond their years, and appear to be Aryan clones. They also seem to have mental powers they can use both to read the minds of those around them and control others' thoughts.

One of the "fathers" of these kids is a scientist (George Sanders) who is able to persuade the military to allow him to attempt to develop these kids' mental powers into something useful and productive over a year of instruction at a special boarding school. Other cultures around the globe have done away with their strange kids (and the mothers) in one way or another, but Sanders' character believes they might have something to offer society -- they may even be the next batch of Einsteins.

Still, the kids seem to have sinister intentions. The don't appear to have any sense of morals or ethics and don't seem to indulge in emotions. Sanders' character's "son" even goes so far as to tell him he could be great if he'd just stop giving into his human feelings.

Unfortunately, people start dropping dead under mysterious circumstances, and this, combined with the strangeness of the children, leads the villagers to believe the children might be evil. A motorist almost runs over one of the children on accident, and the kids gather around his car and stare at it intently until the driver rams himself into a wall. His brother attempts to kill the children for this, and then mysteriously turns his shotgun on himself. It's not long before a an angry village mob is forming.

VILLAGE OF THE DAMND is a good thriller that unfolds at a brisk pace without ever really giving itself away. The audience is always in the dark as far as what exactly is going on, which keeps us on the edge of our seats from the first sequence, which is also probably the best sequence, with the villagers all mysteriously dropping unconscious in mid-action. But, from there, every ten minutes or so, a new mystery crops up, and that keeps us going until the unavoidably tragic end.