In the English village of Midwich, the blond-haired, glowing-eyed
children of uncertain paternity prove to have frightening powers.
Village of the Damned is a 1960 British science fiction film by German director Wolf Rilla. The film is adapted from the novel The Midwich Cuckoos (1957) by John Wyndham. The lead role of Professor Gordon Zellaby was played by George Sanders.
In the small English village of Midwich everybody and everything falls
into a deep, mysterious sleep for several hours in the middle of the
day. Some months later every woman capable of child-bearing is pregnant
and the children that are born out of these pregnancies seem to grow
very fast and they all have the same blond hair and strange, penetrating
eyes that make people do things they don't want to do.
This is an absolute masterpiece of paranoia, sci-fi style. The acting
is superb, especially by the late and under-appreciated Mr. Sanders,
whose compassion and intellect sets the tone for this quiet and
somewhat sad little tale. The lovely Barbara Shelley as Sanders loving
wife is sweet and totally believable. Indeed, the townsfolk are all
very realistic and approachable, kind and simple folk who don't really
deserve the wrath of the spooky children who have invaded their small
town. Young Martin Stephens, who also turned in a creepy performance in
the ghostly masterpiece "The Innocents" is every bit as creepy here as
George and Barbara's "son."
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| Beware the stare that will paralyze the will of the world. |
Special praise must also go to the director and photographer, Wolf
Rilla and Geoffrey Faithful, who give the movie the detached air of a
documentary. The script, credited to Stirling Silliphant, George
Barclay and Rilla, is an excellent adaptation of a fine book, "The
Midwich Cuckoos" by John Beynon Harris. Fans of this movie will want to
read it. The book has many enjoyable details that were necessarily and
wisely cut from the adaptation. To note one difference, the children in
the movie are psychically linked: what one knows they all know. But in
the book, the boys are psychically linked with the boys, the girls with
the girls; but there is little or no link between the two sexes. The
reasons for this are fascinating.
The funniest part of the film was the dude that looked just like the country singer Lyle Lovett. I kept waiting for him to break out in song.
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| Lyle Lovett looks over the situation. |
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| Lyle Lovett surrounded by those creepy kids. |
"Village of the Damned" is a mysterious and scary horror movie, with an
original story in the style of "The Twilight Zone". The plot is
intriguing and has not aged. The performances are excellent and the
simple special effect of the eyes of the children associated to their
performances is frightening. Village of the Damned is a good way to spend an hour and a quarter one
evening. Very creepy.
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| What Demonic Force Lurks Behind Those Eyes? |
Trivia:
The eerie effect of the children's glowing eyes was created by matting a
negative (reversed) image of their eyes over the pupils when they used
their powers.
Originally begun in 1957 as an American picture to star Ronald Colman,
MGM shelved the project, because it was deemed potentially inflammatory
and controversial, specifically due to its sinister depiction of virgin
birth.
The blond wigs that the children wear had a built-in dome to give the impression that they had a larger than normal cranium.
The source novel is called The Midwich Cuckoos. This is because when
cuckoo birds lay eggs, they deposit these eggs in the nests of other
birds, who then raise the cuckoo chicks as their own. Compounding the
insidious nature of this process, the cuckoo chicks often murder their
nestmates in competition for food and parental attention.
Ronald Colman was originally supposed to star in this film. He passed away in 1958 and was replaced by George Sanders, who had married Colman's widow Benita Hume in 1959
The map co-ordinates for Midwich, given over the radio when pilots are
being advised to avoid the local airspace, refer to the real life
village of Woodmancott in Hampshire.
