Village of the Damned

These questions are asked in the Book of Proverbs and in John Carpenter's Village of the Damned, a remake of director Wolf Rilla's 1960 version, both adapted from John Wyndham's novel The Midwich Cuckoos.

Village of the Damned is the story of the simultaneous births of telepathic children to every woman of child-bearing age in the coastal village of Midwich, California. Carpenter's version is more bloody than the version set in Midwich, England, starring George Sanders (but, like many of Carpenter's movies, not as bloody as people think).

Carpenter's remake is more hopeful. Maybe the filmmakers wanted to leave the story open for a sequel, or maybe the survival of one of the children without his extraterrestrial mate is meant to show the possibility of union between the two inimical species. ("Are we to pity you?" asks Mara, daughter of the town doctor and leader of the alien children, as she explains the facts of cosmic evolution to her father.)

The woman quoting Proverbs is the wife of the minister killed by the children before he can shoot their leader. The minister's wife leads torch-bearing villagers who might have come from a forties Universal horror film. Though put to the children, the question (Are you human?) is also directed at the other villagers and at us.

This Village of the Damned begins with the same deliberate pacing of the original film, a mark of British horror. Something passes over Midwich and everyone blacks out for six hours. Not everyone wakes up.

If there's a theme it's what duty parents owe their children. Children often seem like alien monsters even when they weren't conceived in a blackout by an interstellar cloud. Children demand food and education about the world and ultimately they demand that their parents step aside - - die - - for them to inherit it.

Here there are good reasons for parents to feel uneasy about their soon-to-be-born offspring - - some women are virgins or have been separated from their husbands so the children couldn't have been conceived normally. But none of the parents reject the children for that reason.

The mothers have no choice. After the mass conceptions they all have dreams of carrying their babies to term - - the first telepathic action of the childrens' group mind. The men accept the children, too. The angriest husband, who's been away for months, at first leaves his wife, but then joins her in the huge delivery room where all the children are born on the same night.

After the children are born the adults, even their parents, aren't safe. The childrens' urge to survive and the knowledge that one species or the other will dominate causes them to play on the emotional bond that exists for the parents, especially the mothers, without being hampered by it themselves. This isn't much different than the biological adaptation normal infants have acquired to ensure their survival. David is the exception, the one whose ties to the group mind are weakest.

One of the children was stillborn and taken away by a government scientist (or was it?). She was to be David's partner. Mara tells David that his lack of a mate does make him less valuable to the group. As the children realize they have to escape the town and their parents' control - - grow up - - the town doctor, Mara's father, has the opportunity (and therefore the responsiblility) to try to save humanity. David, too, makes a choice.

Parents, especially ones with green-eyed children, might have some disturbing thoughts after watching this movie.

In the California coastal town of Midwich, a strange unseen force causes the entire town to be rendered unconscience. When the populace reawakens, it is discovered the pregnancy rate has increased. The locals are at a loss to explain the cause. Soon, ten strange children are born, at the same time. All of them possessing platinum blone hair, piercing green eyes and supernatural powers. The intelligent, quiet children are instantly disliked by the townspeople. When residents begin to die under strange curcumstances, the first suspects are the "special" children. It's up to Dr. Alan Chaffee (Christopher Reeve, before his tragic horse riding accident) and Dr. Susan Verner (Kirstie Alley) to discover the truth and stop the children from destroying the town.

Carpenter infuses the film with plenty of his usual touches. The performances from Reeve and Alley are solid and the effects pretty good. The "kids" are genuinely creepy, all of this makes the film better than I remember. The movie script does have a number of problems that are troublesome and its finale seems a bit contrived.

The extras on the DVD are pretty slim at best. Production notes and the theatrical trailer are all you get. While more substantial bonus material, would have been nice, given the final product--I can almost see why things ended up the way they did. Recomended as a rental or for rabid fans of Carpenter's work