A Film that tests the viewers attention and forces them to think for themselves about the probability of something being believable or not. Clever and engaging.

Rating: 6/10 (4 November 2007)

The Village is one of those films that comes very close to perhaps being one of the greatest ever made, it also comes close to being one of the biggest cheats ever put across in film and thus; comes closer still to being one of the worst ever made. I was undecided after viewing it very recently and I'm still undecided now  maybe time will clear my mind and maybe my opinion will change somewhat. I'm sure there are people that hate The Village because people like to be shown things that they recognise and like to be told what's what; but not here as here, you have to exercise your mind.
I'm all for 'twist' endings. I think the twist, when used correctly can be the one reason for a films greatness. Sometimes it's used well with The Usual Suspects being an excellent example as clues and hidden messages in something so immaterial as someone's eyes focusing on a certain thing can be the difference between knowing and not knowing. Other times, such as in De Palma's 2002 film Femme Fatale, the whole thing falls flat on its face leaving us cheated, angry and sad. The Village's twist works and if you watch it with no knowledge of it and without having seen any trailers or clips prior to the film; it really, really works.
I didn't quite know what to think at the end of The Village. On one had, it's a very clever film that has you believe one thing, leads you down a path and then pulls out the path from under you but on another hand, it's a complete waste of time  a mere exercise in 1890s mise-en-scene, cinematography and dialogue that is shot, edited and then has a silly revelation attached to the end. Shyamalan is no fool when it comes to hinting at his story. The film was marketed as a horror film but I think this was deliberate to throw you off. I was surprised at the different genres The Village seemed to fall into: there was the horror, of course but then there was the element of fantasy, look at it logically: It's 1890s America and all these people are living in fear of monsters that live in a nearby wood with no other community around for miles except beyond the dreaded wood. The people also seem too submissive to the monsters since they encroach and kill livestock and yet just like in Signs and Lady in the Water, people would rather run and hide than face them and fight  similarly to what I said about Lady in the Water: the problem is nothing a 12 gauge wouldn't solve (or a similar firearm given it's the 1890s)
The film also contains elements of the fantasy genre. When a character stated that she had her "memories locked up in that box", I thought "how the hell do you lock a memory in a box?" Given the what the film has us believe up until this point, I expected it to be this big, glowing ball of energy that rises up out of whatever it's in: how else is a 'memory' supposed to look in a physical form? From here, The Village becomes a love story very briefly with murder and heartache playing a large role. The film changes direction again: you don't get love stories in horror films as in depth and crisp as this one; another tick in the film's 'negative' column. But wow, was I wrong. The reason I mention all these things is that there is a logical explanation for it all and I knew there would be. The film isn't set in another dimension or another world, why would it be? It hasn't been established like it was in Lord of the Rings so you have to assume its here and now on Planet Earth. The Village looks like it has so many things wrong with it from frame one and yet thinking back after you know the ending, everything makes sense. Even if it seems bad and incorrect at the time, does it make it bad and incorrect if there's a reason for it? One example of what I'm saying can be seen in the character of Ivy Walker (Howard). A village elder sends her to the next town through the haunted woods but she's blind  great idea, huh? Not only this but she doesn't set off at dawn to beat the dark and she and her accomplice stop when it rains instead of keeping going to avoid illness or the monsters. All of these things sound suicidal and at the time, I was wondering what the hell they were all thinking; and yet it all makes sense when you look back following the revelation: why would someone send a blind person on a dangerous mission involving cannibalistic monsters, shortly before it gets dark? The answer is not as difficult as you think.
The Village is a criss-cross of genres; ranging from horror, thriller, fantasy, romance and possibly science fiction but it's not what you think since the film actually changes genre towards the end to something else that probably doesn't even exist  that itself is an achievement. Despite the lingering shots of empty rocking chairs and bare trees blowing in the wind adding an avant-garde feel (but keeping you alert as you try and work out why they're there, pointlessly), The Village maintains concentration and attention throughout without being too un-obvious.