Hot Picks
|
|
|
Village of the Damned
UK / USA 1960
produced by Ronald Kinnoch for MGM
directed by Wolf Rilla
starring George Sanders, Barbara Shelley, Martin Stephens, Michael Gwynn, Laurence Naismith, Richard Warner, Jenny Laird, Sarah Long, Thomas Heathcote, Charlotte Mitchell, Oamela Buck, Rosamund Greenwood, Susan Richards, Bernard Archard, Peter Vaughan, John Phillips, Richard Vernon, John Stuart, Keith Pyott, Alexander Archdale, Sheila Robins, Tom Bowman, Anthony Harrison, Diane Aubrey, Gerald Paris, June Cowell, Linda Bateson, John Kelly, Carlo Cura, Lesley Scoble, Mark Milleham, Roger Malik, Elizabeth Mundle, Teri Scoble, Peter Preidel, Peter Taylor, Howard Knight, Brian Smith, Janice Howley, Paul Norman, Robert Marks, John Bush, Billy Lawrence
screnplay by Stirling Silliphant, Wolf Rilla, George Barclay (= Ronald Kinnoch), based on the novel The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham
review by Mike Haberfelner
|
|
|
|
Available on DVD! To buy, click on link(s) below and help keep this site afloat (commissions earned) |
Always make sure of DVD-compatibility!!!
|
|
|
|
|
For several hours one day, Midwich is completely cut off from the rest
of the world, with all life, humans and animals falling asleep for no
apparent reason, and everybody who tries to enter Midwich falling asleep
as well.
After a few hours though, everything is back to normal, as if nothing
has happened - except of course that all Midwich women capable of
child-bearing are suddenly pregnant, and their unborn children developat a
remarkable rate and are all delivered 2 months early, but at the
remarkable weight of 10 pounds ... and they all look a tad weird, almost
otherworldly, with their strange menacing eyes and their light blond hair.
Plus they develop at a remarkable rate and are soon ready to go to school
...
Soon enough, the townfolks by and large have dismissed them as weirdos
and generally want to have nothing to do with them - all but the local
scientist, Professor Gordon (George Sanders), father of one of the
kids, David (Martin Stephens), who soon enough realizes the kids'
potential to learn and understand coplex problems at a remarkable speed as
well as their extrasensory abilities like telepathy - which they
frequently use to kill those who wrong them.
Eventually, the townsfolks try to kill the kids, but to no avail, the
children always seem a step or two ahead of teh grown-ups and use their
powers to protect themselves.
Professor Gordon does his best to break through to the kids, but
ultimately even he realizes they are a threat to humanity and might be
capable of taking over the world ... which is why he one day brings a
timebomb tlo the classroom where he teaches them, clouds his thoughts and
blows the kids to Kingdom Come, and himself with them ...
Barbara Shelley plays George Sanders' wife, Michael Gwynn his Army
Major brother-in-law.
Village of the Damned is a prime example of cold war-paranoia cinema,
but it's at the same time a dam good film (which doesn't apply to most
cold war-paranoia dinema), a movie that puts it emphasis on the paranoia
as such instead of anti-Commie-propaganda and that tells a deliberately
slow-paced but highly atmospheric and incredibly chilling tale from the
beginning to the very end.
By the way, the question where the children actually come from remains
ultimately open, the characters muse that the kids are from outer space
(of course), but refrain from stating anything definite ...
|