Lots of great things here

Rating: 10/10 (13 April 2015)

This is not just some film about some kind of Amish colony, or any group of religious society shut-outs. If there is any religion proffered by this "Village", it is not mentioned. It is not important.
It's also not any kind of "Horror" film, which is what it was promoted as. Although it has it's suspenseful moments. These people are basically normal, except for a few things: They will not ever return to "The Towns" which is what they call the outside world, and they won't wear Red, or go into "The Woods".
Or else, "Those we must not speak of" will come. Whoever or whatever they are, becomes something we in fact focus on, but in true M Night fashion, this is not what the film is about.
What we have is a basically idyllic home for a group of people. The Elders have their secrets, and the young people are being given a set of "Traditions". But one kid, Noah (Adrien Brody) is a little different. He is referred to as "An Innocent" but it is clear even before we start seeing what is happening, he is not an innocent. He rocks back and forth in his chair as if Autistic, but he has speech. So, this character may have his own world in his mind which he lives in. We don't know much about that at first, but it is clear that Noah is a more complex individual than he lets on, and he is more intelligent than he is given credit for.
The bright light in this film is mainly Bryce Dallas Howard, this was the first time I saw her in a film. She pulls off the Blind girl fairly believably, except her eye movement don't track a blind person's. A Blind person would not focus on anything- But that is a hard thing to duplicate if in fact you can see. Actually, Lili Taylor does a believable Blind girl in the 5th Season X-Files episode "Minds Eye", the closest portrayal I have ever seen - Her eyes wander off camera, never looking directly at who she is speaking to.
The elder characters talk about people in their lives who had suffered violence, people who had been killed in various violent ways. There is more to this talk than just remembrance, it is an important point.
In their artificial idyllic village, these people live as if in the 1800s, sans any modern medical technology. This is a point brought up a couple of times, by the character played by Joaquin Phoenix "Lucius" (Which may or may not be a reference to the film Gladiator where he had a nephew by that name) - He wants to go to "The Towns" to get Medicines. But the Elders give him all kinds of reasons why he can't do it.
So we think this film is about these kids being raised to not depend on modern gadgetry and to avoid offending those that can't be spoken of, who live in the woods, so that is another taboo place. The entire younger generation of the village has been raised to believe in a set of Absolutes, you can't wear Red, you can't speak of the things that will come, and you can't go into the Woods. And, things happen that appear to validate these restrictions. So this false facade is upheld by a thin veneer of what Elder Walker (William Hurt) calls "A farce".
A farce that if the kids knew about, it would destroy whatever sociological experiment is being conducted in The Village.
And we think this film is about Lucius, who wants to marry Howard's character "Ivy"- Until M Night's famous "Reversal" happens.
It's at that point, Night slides in the reasons why the village exists, who the elders really are, and who the unspeakable creatures really are. But mainly, it's how a young blind girl can save the life of the one she loves, without the elders breaking any previous oaths they had taken. It's "Yellow Riding Hood vs the Big Bad Wolf" all over again, and "Nothing is as it Seems" as usual in Night's films.
There are things Night likes to do as a Director, characters being shown in reflections in an object, which he does at the beginning of "Unbreakable", many other little trademarks, they are all here. Mainly there is wonderful imagery and rich character development, but the Village itself and the lifestyle of the people therein is the focal point of the film, it paid off that the whole cast was actually trained how to live in such an environment. You believe that they made all of their own clothes, they husband their own animals, they grew all of their vegetables, they made their own homes. If you can believe that, then the rest of the film falls into place.