Village of the Damned

(1960) director Wolf Rilla
viewed: 11/20/2011

I don’t know how I managed to have never seen Village of the Damned, considering my childhood and beyond interest in horror films, but I had not seen it before.  I was familiar with the images of the tow-headed children and I vaguely knew what it was about since childhood.  For my Halloween collection of horror films to watch (which I’m obviously still clearing out), I had queued up the film to watch with the kids and finally one rainy Sunday, we got to it.

I watched it mostly with Clara, who had some vague curiosity about the film and its sequel, Children of the Damned, though she would call it “Kids of the Damned”.  Felix flitted in and out on it.

Actually, it’s a pretty great movie.

In a rural English village, a sudden sleeping spell comes over everyone therein.  As the military starts to cordon off the village and test what’s happening, everyone revives, after being out cold for several hours.  It turns out in the coming months that all able women have become pregnant, even the virgins.  Their pregnancies result in a group of white-haired children who mature quickly and have a shared knowledge.  Tell one something, everyone immediately knows it too.

As they become about 8 or 9 (which doesn’t take the normal amount of time), it becomes clear that these kids are different from everyone.  They’re creepy.  And when threatened, they can make their eyes glow and force people to do things like kill themselves.  They can read minds, too.

George Sanders, the supposed father of the lead child, has taken to teaching them and has sympathies with them.  The menace that they represent grows and grows.  They are human but they are not human, an advanced form of human being.

The kids themselves are eerie, but the mixture of mystery of the impregnating of the women, the children’s lack of an agenda, the glowing eyes trick…it’s all a pretty effective scary movie.  Easy to see why it’s remained iconic.  Still hard to believe I’d never seen it before.

Clara also thought it was good.  She was eager to watch the sequel.