Tedious, Underwhelming Shyamalan Misfire

Rating: Null/10 (16 September 2004)

"The Village", while boasting an interesting, if frivolous, premise, is quite simply a paramount misfire in entertainment, film-making, and horror. If you're going into this film looking for signature "Sixth Sense" Shyamalan: a simple, creepy, inspirational work of horror and suspense, or if you're going into this film for any entertainment whatsoever, you will be tremendously disappointed with this film. "The Village", even with its interesting plot of "creatures in the woods" somehow manages to bore its audience substantially more than scare, to yawn with apathy more than shriek with intensity, and I found myself frequently dosing off into another dimension, growing increasingly dissatisfied and disconnected to everything that was happening with this story. The fact is, there's not too much here to follow or even care about. Village people; Boundaries from the outside world; Creatures frightening village; Blind girl getting medicine... a complete bore. Admittedly, the music, while practically never correlating with the film's situations, is effective and perhaps enchanting. Everything else in the film, however, fails to attract any interest after awhile. Wooden acting with cardboard dialogue ("We have always had a gentle understanding with the creatures that live in the woods"). Most of the time, instead of getting frightened by the creatures we are bored to tears by the tedium of the screenplay, which is dull and lifeless. We frequently wait for something important, something exciting to occur, and by the time we are treated with "the surprise ending", our interest has already diminished, and we can only sigh and say, "Who cares?" A "surprise" simply does not work when the interest of the audience has completely faded. Bottom line, "The Village" is a tedious, disappointing misfire which contained a promising premise, yet failed to deliver any note of exhilaration or anxiety in its theme of horror. Anxiety? I was only anxious for the ending to arrive. *1/2 out of ****