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.

This eerie film isn't your typical "murderer on the loose" film. It provides horror by raising that question we all avoid... are there beings superior to us out there, and would they view us as equals, or would we be treated like cattle to them, useless creatures in the way? It starts off with Midwitch, a small town with charm and a tight-knit community. When everyone within the town faint during a school picnic one day, it intrigues the National Science Foundation, especially Dr. Verner, a stern and headstrong scientist who secretly knows what is happening but she doesn't let on. The local sheriff claims confusion; there is no industrial chemical plant nearby or anything that could knock out a whole town... when everyone wakes up, three have died, including the husband of the school principal. She is shocked and overjoyed to discover several weeks later that she is pregnant... but all the women, even ones who have never tried to have a child, are pregnant as well, and every pregnancy dates to the day of the strange fainting spell.When the children are finally born, they are all similar in appearance, white hair and hostile blue eyes, pale faces and uniform gray clothes. One of the babies is born dead, from the teenage mother who was a virgin although somehow she conceived a baby. Verner steals it for an autopsy, and in a deep depression the would-be-mother kills herself.The children, especially the leader, Mara, are all intellectually superior to the adults, don't play like the other kids in town do, and they are always around during a tragic death. They can control minds, Verner knows this, and confides in the town doctor that these kids are not from earth but are some race unknown to humanity. Only David, the principal's son, shows signs of emotion; there may be hope for him.This film is thrilling to the end, I saw it on TV once and loved it. The acting of the children is so good it's scary, likely the effect wanted, and the soundtrack is eerie yet beautiful. Every actor did a great job. I wouldn't suggest kids should watch it; there are disturbing scenes such as an unborn dead child, Dr. Verner cutting herself open with a surgical knife, a woman setting herself on fire and a priest shooting himself. If you're a fan of alien movies though, or movies about beings with psychic powers, this movie is a great one to try.

John Carpenter seems to like putting his name with his movies as the official title of this movie is "John Carpenter's Village of the Damned." This movie is not his original though, rather it is based upon a movie made in 1960 and a book by John Wyndym, who also wrote Day of the Triffids. My friend described this movie as a "B-grade horror movie" and I am sort of inclined to agree with him except that there is a little more to it than simply nasty monsters.One Saturday afternoon, the entire village of Midwich falls asleep. The doctor (Christopher Reeve) is out of town and when he returns he finds that the FBI, state police, and army stand at the road leading in. They are all mystified as to why everybody fell asleep. Later they all wake up (and a graphic scene of a man having been cooked when he fell asleep on a barbecue is shown) and soon it is discovered that all of the women in the town are pregnant. Nine months later about nine children are born, four females and five males. One of the babies is still-born and quickly taken away by the FBI scientist (Kirsty Alley). These children grow up to become very intelligent and possessive of psionic abilities, and they begin to take control of the town.The nature of the children need be examined before the entirety of the film is looked at. These children are albino and travel in male/female pairs, all except one whose female partner died in childbirth. These children have no emotion and consider themselves to be the superior to the human race. Where they come from it not clearly explained, but that is the nature of horror movies, there is no need for explanation.The single child, David, is one of the keys to the movie. As he does not have a partner, he begins to evolve differently to the children. He begins to understand pain due to the emptiness that the absence of his partner causes. He is torn between looking for a place within the children and without. His desire to belong and his loyalty to the other children cause a conflict within. The leader of the children is a female, and this is possibly a symbol of the nature of the children. They are opposed to everything that humanity stands for. They view humanity as an enemy and thus a female, generally considered the submissive sex, rises to become the leader of the children to challenge this aspect of humanity.There are two basic fears within this movie: the fear that there exists a race that is supremely more powerful than humanity, and the parental fear that their children will rise to take their place. One of the major themes is that the children are superior to humanity. They exist to replace humanity and to destroy them. This is a basic fear as humans generally want to be the dominant. The problem is that we are not. Our fear of an extra-powerful entity is justified with the existence of God. People deal with this by making God their ally in everything they do. God is somebody, to most people, that lives with humans and demands nothing. This is not true for God demands obedience and we refuse to give it. Because we refuse to acknowledge him he will destroy us, and because of this we should respect who he is.The second fear, that of parents towards the children, is also a justified one. At one stage a parent will have many expectations of the child, but as the child grows and begins to become independent, this changes. There is generally a struggle between the child and the parent with the child wanting to go his or her own way while the parent wanting his/her will for the child. This movie manifests the ultimate fear that the child is superior to the parent and also uncontrollable. It is not the parent who controls the child but the child who controls the parent. Not only are the children in control of their parents but they also have the power of life and death over the parents, as is revealed quite quickly in the movie.I enjoyed Village of the Damned. It was not a movie that stands above other movies, but it is one in which there is some thought. The horror in this movie is more subtle than a lot of other movies, the horror being more social than spiritual.

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.