Village of the Damned (1995 film)

Infobox_Film
name = John Carpenter's
Village of the Damned


caption = "Village of the Damned" movie poster
director = John Carpenter
producer = Michael Preger
Sandy King
writer = Novel:
John Wyndham
Screenplay:
David Himmelstein
starring = Christopher Reeve
Kirstie Alley
Thomas Dekker
Mark Hamill
Linda Kozlowski
Michael Paré
music = John Carpenter
Dave Davies
editing = Edward A. Warschilka
cinematography = Gary B. Kibbe
distributor = Universal Pictures (1995) (USA) (theatrical)
released = April 28, 1995
runtime = 99 min.
country = USA
language = English
budget = $22,000,000 (estimated)
amg_id = 1:134675
imdb_id = 0114852

"John Carpenter's Village of the Damned" is an English language 1995 science fiction–horror film directed by John Carpenter. It is marketed with the tagline "Beware the children."

A remake of the 1960 film of the same name, both films are based on the novel "The Midwich Cuckoos" by John Wyndham. The 1995 remake is set in the United States, while the book and original film were both set in Great Britain.

It stars Christopher Reeve (in his last starring role before he was paralyzed in a horse riding accident), Kirstie Alley, Linda Kozlowski, Michael Pare, and Mark Hamill. The remake stands out from the original due to its incorporation of graphic violence, with depictions of such things as a man falling asleep on a barbecue grill and a woman eviscerating herself with a scalpel while under the children's psychic control.

The children are much more explicitly alien than in the original film. The children become more alien-looking as they use their powers at greater intensity. Also, a degree of conspiracy theory permeates the storyline. It is implied that the American government is willing to allow the children to grow to adulthood regardless of how many murders the children commit, according to Susan's words. It is stated by Linda however that the other colonies have all been destroyed and that Midwich is scheduled to be next, which would imply that the government is not willing to allow the children to grow up.

Plot

The American village of Midwich is visited by some unknown life form which leaves ten women of the village pregnant. Nine months later, the babies are born simultaneously (but one is stillborn). At first, they all appear normal, but it doesn't take the "parents" long to realize that the kids are anything but normal. As they grow older, the children are shown to have orange skin and bleach-white hair.

There are some story differences from the earlier adaptation. In this version, one of the children, David, child of local school principal Jill McGowan, loses his "partner" after she dies at birth. As a consequence, he shows human compassion while still resembling the other children and retaining some degree of psychic powers. This leads to his not fitting in well with the children, especially the leader Mara ("daughter" of a local doctor, Dr. Alan Chaffee; her mother, Barbara, commits suicide by walking off an ocean cliff), who considers him less important due to his expression of emotions. Because of his childhood loss, he understands what the other children do not: pain. He and his mother share a brief conversation of this, with David understanding that if he feels pain, he can understand other's pain also. When the other children experience pain, they simply use their powers to inflict the same pain on the adult responsible.

Soon the other colonies of psychotic children in foreign countries are eliminated because of their danger, the scientific team there quickly flee from the town to escape the chaos. However, the lead scientist, Dr. Susan Verner, is killed by the children after being forced to show them David's "partner", who was the baby that was stillborn. Susan had secretly kept the baby so that she could perform an autopsy on it and study it. A mob of angry townspeople attempt to stop the children, but they use their powers to kill the leader of the mob and the other townspeople quickly flee. The State Police and National Guard are then sent out to kill the children but they are hypnotized by the children into shooting each other.

In order to rid the town of the children, Alan devises a plan: he'll 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's powers. Jill begs him to save David (because he is not like the others), though, which he wholeheartedly attempts to do by asking him to leave the classroom to get his books, which were in his car. Finally, Jill shows up, but the children stop her. David, angered by this, rushes to her defense and knocks over Mara. The children turn on David, but not before Jill grabs him and rushes from the building. At last, the children break through Alan's defenses, but it is too late: the explosives detonate, destroying the barn and killing all of the children, including Alan.

Jill and David survive the massacre; she says that they will both move to a place where nobody knows them. The last scene is of David, riding in his mother's car, looking off into the distance.

Main cast

External links

*
*