Half-hour plot crammed into two hours

Rating: 4/10 (26 April 2005)

This was well-filmed and decently acted, but there's not enough there there. M Night is a good cinematographer and knows how to set up suspense, but he should have put more complexity into the story. The plot twist is not terribly surprising and less clever than his previous films, even "Unwatchable" (sorry, "Unbreakable"). It's really only enough for a Twilight Zone plot, probably because it pretty much WAS one - the episode with Cliff Robertson in a wagon train where he sets off to get medicine for his sick boy. He inadvertently crosses into the modern world and returns to his time with the magic medicine (penicillin). Except for the time travel aspect, that's pretty much what happens in the Village.
A few other problems - a settlement completely isolated from the outside, yet with absolutely immaculate, finely finished clothing, housing and furniture (they've been there at least 18 years, remember); almost no sign of crops; a seeming abundance of leisure time and no shots of anyone working in the fields or at looms, even though constant, grinding labor would be needed to support that many people. I fail to see why the Federal government would accept a bribe to keep flight paths away from the area (no one's ever strayed over it?). None of the young men in town have ever tried to fight one of the creatures, and no one's ever seen the elders heading into the woods with an outfit tucked into their arms? No one's ever stumbled across one of the outfits? William Hurt mentions the elders made the creepy sounds from the woods, but never says how - a solar-powered recording?
Not to mention the morality of forcibly holding your children ignorant and superstitious. There are far easier ways of maintaining a sanctuary while still being aware of the outside world. And obviously the experiment failed, as they were not able to shut out passions and crime.