Village of the Damned (1995 film)

Plot

The quiet coastal town of Midwich in California's Marin County is invaded by an unseen force, causing a blackout for six hours, which leaves ten women mysteriously pregnant. Nine months later, the babies are born simultaneously on one night, though one is stillborn. At first, they all appear to be normal, but it does not take the parents long to realize that they aren't. The children are shown to all have pale skin, white hair, fierce intellect, and cobalt eyes. However, they also do not appear to possess a conscience or personalities. The children display eerie psychic abilities that can result in violent and deadly consequences whenever they experience pain or provocation.

The children soon "pair off", except for one of the boys, David, whose intended partner was the stillborn baby. As a result, he shows human compassion while still resembling the other children and retaining some degree of psychic powers. Their leader is Mara, the daughter of a local physician, Dr. Alan Chaffee. Mara's mother, Barbara, commits suicide by walking off an ocean cliff. Because of his childhood loss, David understands what the other children do not: emotion. He and his mother Jill McGowan (the local school teacher) share a brief conversation about this, displaying empathy and remorse. The children eventually move to the local barn as their classroom and for survival.

Soon it is revealed that there are other colonies of blackout children in foreign countries, but they were quickly eliminated due to their inhuman nature. The scientific team in Midwich quickly flees the town to escape the chaos. Government scientist, Dr. Susan Verner, is forced to show the children the preserved stillborn baby she secretly kept to perform an autopsy, which is unveiled as an alien. She then is made to fatally stab herself. An angry mob gathers to kill the children, but the leader is set on fire and burns to death while the state police sent there are instead hypnotized into shooting each other in a chaotic gun battle.

In order to rid the town of the children, Alan devises a plan: to detonate a briefcase of explosives inside the children's classroom. By thinking of a brick wall, he is able to create a mental barrier and keep the presence of the bomb a secret from the children. Jill begs him to spare David because he is not like the others, and Alan agrees. He attempts to do this by asking David to leave the classroom to get his notebook from his car. The children begin to suspect that Alan is hiding something, and they slowly "destroy" the wall. Finally, Jill shows up, but the children stop her and attempt to use mind control. David, tired of this, rushes to her defense and knocks Mara over. The children turn on David, but Jill rushes him from the building. As soon as the children discover Alan thinking of the bomb, it detonates, killing everyone inside, along with Alan.

Jill and David survive the massacre; she says that they will both move to a place where nobody knows them. David looks off into the distance as they drive away.

Production

Unlike its predecessor, the film was shot in widescreen color. Lloyd Paseman of the Eugene Register-Guard said that the shooting in widescreen color and the fact that major actors such as Christopher Reeve, Mark Hamill and Kirstie Alley were a part of the film made it so that the film was "anything but cheap". Additional graphic violence was added in the remake; the children cause one adult to kill herself by cutting herself open with a surgical knife and another has an adult immolate herself.

John Carpenter moved the story from England to Northern California and set it in the contemporary time period. He gave female characters larger roles in the story. Paseman said that aside from those moves, the film "made no attempt to update his source material" and that the film was "not unlike most of the science-fiction/horror movies Hollywood churned out for a mostly teen-age audience during the 1950s and into the early '60s."

If the children apply moderate psychic powers, their pupils have the appearances of red or green-flecked pupils, and the color becomes a bright white when they apply strong psychic powers.

Charlotte Gravenor, the hairstylist, bleached the hair of the actors who played the children, and then applied white hairspray to their hair. This made them appear like aliens. Bruce Nicholson and Greg Nicotero applied a special effect where the eye pupil colors change when the children seize control of the adults. Paseman said that the eye effect was "less impressive" than the hair effect.

Main cast

The Children

Reception

In addition to being a failure at the box office, the film received mediocre critical response. Based on 34 reviews collected by Rotten Tomatoes, Village of the Damned holds a 29% approval rating from critics, with an average score of 3.9 out of 10. In 1996, the film was nominated at the 16th Golden Raspberry Awards for Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-off or Sequel.

Lloyd Paseman of the Eugene Register-Guard said that while the remake did not attempt to make Village of the Damned "something" that its predecessor was not, the film had "mediocre" dialogue and plot development. He gave it two stars out of four. Paseman also remarked that in this film Reeve made an "earnest" attempt, that Kozlowski did the highest quality acting for the film, that Dekker was "credible," and that Hamill was "badly miscast."

Janet Maslin of the New York Times was more enthusiastic, regarding it as "John Carpenter's best horror film in a long while". The remake was "mostly more sly than frightening..restaging the original story with fresh enthusiasm and a nice modicum of new tricks."

In a 2011 interview Carpenter described the film as a "contractual assignment" which he was "really not passionate about".