A GREAT er...Love Story?!!?!

Rating: Null/10 (19 September 2004)

Sitting at home, watching a trailer for the "Village" - i saw what seemed to be a cool horror film. I sensed atmosphere, i sensed suspense, i sensed fear, i sensed horror....I SENSED WRONG! You must question though from the same guy that bought you the fantastic "The 6th Sense"- and seeing the trailer you'd really expect it to be on par with it- but the 6th sense does RINGS around "The Village".
There's been a deep absence of horror in cinema recently, after the whole slasher moment (1995-2000)- i noticed a calm in all forms of horror...Oh and was i hungry for more horror. I decided to go check out the village and i cant say too much besides what a GREAT disappointment. The trailer is the most misleading thing you will lay your eyes upon. The story consists of a village in the woods that is surrounded by the myth of creatures that lurk in the woods- its simple...Don't cross their neck of the woods- and they wont cross yours. It sounds like it has premise to be something scary.
M. Night Shyamalan is FAMOUS for his plot twists and turns, but oh boy was someone trying a little TOO hard here. There's trying and trying too hard! He did that right here. Although "The Village" had a decent cast and some very good acting, you will find yourself falling asleep in no time. If you love horror and suspense- this is NOT your film. The film is more or less a soppy love story between the villages hero and a blind girl. It was so funny how about half way through the film people were getting really impatient with the film.
I wont say "The Village" was a BAD film because it wasn't. It just wasn't what it was made out to be and it WILL disappoint many people. The cinematography is truly beautiful, the acting is fine, actors are good- but it loses points for being boring, slow paced and when it came to "revealing" the monsters that was by far hilarious. All in all "The Village" is a film that lies to its audience- read more below.
ACTORS: The actors are good. Newcomer Bryce Dallas Howard is a GREAT actress, Joaquin Phoenix played his part well. There were a few other famous faces- including Sigourney Weaver who in my opinion didn't match her role. The acting was fine in general and that wasn't the problem with the film.
SCRIPT: Pretty poor. This film tries to rely on a "twist" to be its saving grace, but its terrible how it just goes from one "twist" to another, they go way too far with all these twists and turns, in the end it feels like a rushed confused film. You can see the whole quality of the film really dies down in the last 30 minutes. More mystery, more suspense would have been great, less talk and pointless nonsense such as the "bad color" etc.
CINEMA: Cinematography was in general great. The whole village looked fantastic, people were dressed in period clothing. Long sweeping grass, scary woods- i cant deny the good job on the cinematography, its an attractive film thats for sure.
HORROR: A REAL lack luster here ladies and gentlemen. As i said this is more like a romantic film than a horror film. There is ONE scene which will give you a little bit of a jump and thats about it, for the other 90 minutes expect to be twitching while getting impatient and drifting off to sleep when you finally have had enough.
MUSIC: The music in the film was pretty good. Atmospheric in parts, well timed. I cant really complain about the music.
OVERALL: "The Village" is something you REALLY can not judge from its cover. Although everything about it spells out "HORROR FILM"- it could never be so wrong. I find the Village to make a great Romance film, a deep drama maybe- but in no way shape or form is this a horror film, it is not scary at all- horror fans will be totally disappointed. A misleading trailer will really rake in some good dough- but expect it to rake in some bad reviews and a loss of respect to M. Night Shyamalan.
** / ***** (2 out of 5 stars)