Village of the Damned (1995)

Load of rubbish!!

hyped garbage

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

An insipid, uninspired retread of the 1960 original. This film is typical of what happens when America churns out yet another remake of a classic film. The result is shallow, glossy, and totally dull. John Carpenter, who has made such brilliant films as HALLOWEEN and THE THING, obviously took the money and ran in this case, as the film contains none of his typical atmosphere or style. Instead it has a bland, TV movie like atmosphere. The chills in the first film from the spooky children are replaced instead by clumsy over-emphasis. Gone are the sinister kids, instead we have aliens (what else? Post X-FILES, no film can be complete without an alien in a jar) with glowing multicoloured eyes. Unfortunately, the special effects are rubbish, and look far too computer generated to be anything but realistic. The 'horror' in the film comes from the series of murders that the children commit.In 1960, VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED achieved fame from a chilling atmosphere of the unknown. In 1995, VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED achieves nothing with a handful of boring murders, which aren't even particularly gory. The most gruesome demise is that of Kirstie Alley, but it has to be said that we were pretty thankful it took place; Alley sleepwalks through her role here and comes off as totally unlikeable. The same can be said of Christopher Reeve, who gives such a bland, expressionless performance that you can't help but smile at the end. His riding accident which left him crippled took place right after the completion of this film; it's disappointing that he had the misfortune to end his able-bodied career on this note. The only actor of interest in the film is Mark Hamill as a shotgun wielding vicar who gives an over the top performance bordering on psychotic. He's fun.The children are annoying bad/cute child actors and actresses, who try very hard to look sinister but fail miserably. The only moments worth watching in this film are the comic scene where a man is burnt on a barbecue, or the ending where policemen and soldiers all suddenly start shooting each other for no reason. There is also some tension in the explosive finale, but it comes far too late to lift this film from being anything other than a middling, stupid affair.

Not a bad remake of the 1960 classic film. Carpenter did add some violence to this remake... 1995 people are wanting more on-screen, more blood, guts and violence in their films - so Carpenter gave them some but it's not overly violent or bloody. I don't think this film is violent or bloody enough to satisfy most teens of the 1990s.The story is a pretty good alien story to begin with and I think the cast and crew did a good job on this remake. No, it is not the original but it's still a pretty good sci-fi horror movie to kick back and enjoy.As far as the children, I think both the 1960 and 1995 films are very creepy kids! I would be very nervous with them around - and the longer I was with them, the more I learned about them the more frightened I would become - if this was real! lol.7/10

After a strange affliction hits their small town, a group of woman suddenly become pregnant and gives birth to a series of children granted with special powers that make life difficult for the rest of the town and decide to do something about it.Overall this one was quite the enjoyable and slightly entertaining remake effort. One of the best efforts about it comes from the absolutely chilling effect here done with the titular children, who are quite possibly among the most chilling and terrifying kids seen in the genre. The pale, pale features, light blond hair, emotionless faces, monotone voice and insane ability to continually be with each other in numerous groups for each of the different encounters manages to make for quite an effective time here even before getting to their powers with their physical appearance generating quite a large amount of scares enough. The powers that come into play here are utterly effective as well, making for some great times here with the effect of the spinning eyes and flashing lights emanating from there which all centers around the idea of them being aliens or some other life-force that happened upon the scene and really makes for quite a fun time overall here. Those powers are given quite a wide berth here which comes from some really great action scenes including the early scenes of them out in town causing the mass amounts of suicides by jumping over cliffs, driving vehicles into exploding canisters or just generally forcing their will upon others and makes for a grand set-up to the second half where they take over the town and set-off into the barn to be by themselves which is really quite enjoyable as there's plenty of fun here with them taking out the Army troop sent in to kill them and the finale where he has them trapped alone with him. These here do manage to make this good enough to hold out over the few minor flaws on display, namely from the first half here where there's just way too much mystery going on that doesn't get resolved at all. Not only does this part feature the mysterious wave that comes over the people but it's also entirely unclear how exactly that enabled the woman to become pregnant as nothing was shown to have happened to them in order to cause this nor did anyone say anything about how it happened. The whole pregnancy angle is a huge question mark, and leaving it as unexplained as it does is quite troublesome, as is the remaining parts of this since it's built up around the governmental protection policy of studying the children which never comes to fruition and it all seems to go back to normal anyway almost immediately after. As well, the last real flaw here is the rather bland way they tend to go about enforcing their will on people, as they just flash their eyes and that's about it. The effect is cool, but it doesn't really provide much in the visual sense. Otherwise, this was quite fun and highly enjoyable.Rated R: Graphic Violence, Language and continuous threatening actions toward children.

Village of the Damned is one of those films that has everything going for it but does not quite live up to its potential. It is definitely not one of John Carpenter's stronger films. The film is not bad because there are definitely many good points to it, but also quite a few not so good points. This film has a great premise. The cast was great and the effects were pretty decent. I will say the beginning and the ending are both great and suspenseful. However, the middle portion is the factor that really brings the film down.The movie stars the late Christopher Reeve as Dr. Alan Chaffee, Kirstie Alley as Dr. Susan Verner, and Mark Hamill in a small role as the village priest. The story is as follows. One day, in a small village called Midwich everyone suddenly collapses. They wake up not knowing what happened. A couple days later it is revealed that all of the village women have become pregnant at once. The babies grow at an exponential rate. They discover that the babies are of extraterrestrial origin. Even the government gets involves to uncover this mystery. The babies are born and grow very quickly in a few weeks or months. These children all have white hair, little personality, and have the ability to ready and control people's minds. Eventually they mind control people to have them commit suicide. Now it is up to Christopher Reeve to stop them.Again the film starts out great where you have the whole village suddenly losing consciousness. They, along, with the audience, are trying to figure what could have caused that. Then you have every woman in the village getting pregnant. This is all really interesting. What could have caused this, and what is their intention? Then at the end you have a fun sequence where the military comes in to deal with the children. The children then take control of all of their minds and force them to kill each other. That was a very fun scene with great production value. There are even some decent kills during the middle.However, the middle portion I found to be very boring and lackluster. Most of the middle is focused on the children, how different and inhuman they are, and the village and government debating on what to do with them. There was barely and horror, tension, action, or anything like that. I just did not care and found myself almost falling asleep. Mark Hamill's character gets killed off in a stupid way during the middle as well, which annoyed me. I am a fan of Mark Hamill, so I did not like him being killed off so early. There are some decent kills by the children here and there, but not enough for me.Also we never find out what these children really are, where they came from, and why they are doing this. We know that they hate humans, but we do not know why. All the questions that I had during the beginning of the film were never addressed. This is why I do not think this movie quite lived up to its potential.Overall, Village of the Damned is not bad, but was a bit disappointing. If you are a fan of John Carpenter and his other works then give this a look. Just do not expect something on the level of Halloween, The Thing, The Fog, etc.