Unspeakable Horror!

Rating: 3/10 (10 January 2005)

I think that there was an ulterior motive to this production : it was designed so that it could not be critiqued, with out 'spoiling' the film for the reader. But I will try.
First the dialog : for those reasons, of which I cannot speak of, was awful. It was as if the cast (which included William Hurt, Sigourney Weaver, Joaquim Phoenix , Brendon Gleeson and Bryce Howard) had to be untrained to act. It reminded me of a high school Shakespeare production.
Why? Why do they speak as though this takes place not here and now but in an unknown time and place not of the choosing of mortal men and of mortal women?
Then there was costume and props. They didn't just span decades. They spanned centuries! For those unmentionable things, of which I can not speak, I couldn't figure why this had to be this way. It look as though the village was furnished by PBS's 'Antique Road Show'. Had the costumes and props been consistent, the entire story would have been much more believable. But I will speak no more of this for it is not to be spoken of.
And then, everything creaks! Everything. Every step, every door, every box, everything! There are no sounds in the forrest except twigs snapping. No birds, no crickets, no other noises excpt for that swarm of invisible flys .... of which, my sense of sight does not perceive.
Then there is the story itself. It seemed to purposely imitate the Stephan King style.Of course there is a 'moral to this story', and it's totally 'retro'. The film missed the point, and the audience by about twenty years.
I would not doubt that the imaginative M. Night Shamalan will one day come up with a winner, but "The Village" certainly is not it.