is separation from everyday life more of a state of mind?

Rating: 6/10 (18 December 2005)

We have faced the enemy and find it to be ourselves.
The movie thrusts you into the apparent tranquility of a remote ante-bellum 19th century Pennsylvania village. The villagers are celebrating a communal feast and then you hear it the howl from the woods just outside the clearing. Exactly what forces of darkness are out there in the forrest that make the villagers avoid the color red and use a beigish-tan as a protected color.
The movie spirals into the nature of the threat and the secret past identity of the elders, the adult villagers.
The film is well recommended for its occasional cinematical brilliance in moments of tension, fear and surprise, but I think errs on one point, very perilously close to its central premise: If one transported 21st century people back to the tranquility of an era of good feeling prior to the civil war, wouldn't they be 21st century people in costume transplanted anti-modernists rather than 19th century people? Think on it.