Of course the monsters are real . . . (MASSIVE SPOILERS)

Rating: 9/10 (5 August 2004)

********MAJOR SPOILER WARNING-- DO NOT READ UNLESS YOU'VE SEEN THIS MOVIE********
When reading comments on this movie, what annoys me more than anything is seeing people say that the monsters aren't real. The monsters are real. There may not really be humanoid porcupines in red capes stalking through Covington Woods, but there are most certainly monsters in this movie. Sure, I was disappointed that there weren't any ugly creatures running around tearing out people's guts to see all the pretty blood, but there was so much other cool stuff going on that I really didn't mind.
What the Elders fear, and wish to keep away from their children, are the monsters of greed, jealousy, and hatred, and the people outside the woods who have become consumed by them. When it is said that the Villagers "have always had an understanding with the creatures," the reference is not to the literal but fictional creatures in the wood, but to the people inhabiting the world outside, seen as monsters by the Elders who founded the Village. In this light, considering the common association of animals with fundamental innocence, it is significant that the Elders would choose to found their community inside a wildlife preserve. Animals are also associated with a lack of romantic love, which is even more significant, since love seems to replace money as a fundamental but corruptive motivation for the inhabitants of the Village, as represented by the Villagers' horror of the color red. (Walker is most likely aware of this shift, which may be why he refuses to act on his supposed attraction to Alice, but he is also aware that there is nothing he can do about it.)
However, even in the first generation of children, we can see the Elders' plan beginning to fail. Money-- the corruptive agent particularly abhorred by the Elders-- is unknown to them, but another currency has replaced it: that of love, normally a relatively minor corrupter. A notable example is Ivy's younger sister, who can almost be thought of as an obsessive shopper among men; she becomes covetous of Lucius one day, becomes hysterical when unable to have him, but within days has married someone else without a spare thought for her past "love." Even at their wedding reception, though, we can already see her becoming discontent with her prize, and it is not hard to imagine that she will be lusting after yet another man quite soon. Other characters-- Lucius and his mother, for example-- also appear to be more obsessed with romantic love than might be expected from people in the "real" world. Noah, however, provides the most obvious example of love-as-money in the film: just like the Elders' loved ones were murdered over money, he attempts to murder Lucius for the perceived theft of Ivy's love.
The supreme irony in The Village, and what I see as the point of the movie, is the Elders' inability to prevent their community from being corrupted. When the skinned livestock begin to appear in the Village-- presumably courtesy of Noah-- the timing coincides with the increasing overtness of the attraction between Lucius and Ivy, and Lucius' final admission of his feelings comes as a direct reaction to the "monsters" themselves invading the Village. Again, love is serving as a metaphor for money, and the "monsters" represent the corruption of the community to which their relationship will soon lead, and this corruption manifests itself shortly afterward in the attempted murder of Lucius. At that point, Walker realizes that the monsters cannot be kept at bay forever; he is forced to send Ivy-- who is the only practical choice, since her blindness gives her protection against the film's metaphorical monsters-- into enemy territory in order to obtain the very "weapons" that will save the Village from its monsters, if only this once.
When the monsters are seen as metaphors, the ending can be read as similar to those of most monster movies. Ivy returns successfully with the "weapons." She has not been corrupted/attacked by the monsters, but she has nonetheless defeated one: specifically, Noah, the direct agent of corruption within the Village. With that "monster" dead, the community is safe for now. However, the Elders specifically name Ivy and Lucius as those who will continue to maintain the Village's isolation when the founders are gone-- and, through their intense romantic love for each other, they have already been shown to be indirect agents of corruption. As in many other horror movies, the immediate danger has been eliminated, but the future is still uncertain.
OK, didn't mean to write quite that much . . . sorry.
9.5/10, by the way, because Ivy's blindness *was* pretty unbelievable.