Good film with a great twist.

Rating: 6/10 (28 November 2009)

The Village is set during the 19th Century where a small village exists in total seclusion surrounded by woods that are filled with strange monsters that the elders say will not let anyone from the village enter the woods or leave the area.Some of the younger members of the village are not totally convinced & seek permission to leave the village & travel to towns beyond the woods but the elders are insistent that they do not leave. When a blind girl named Ivy Walker (Bryca Dallas Howard) & Lucius Hunt (Joaquin Phoenix) announce their intentions to marry village simpleton Noah (Adrein Brody) who has a crush on Ivy stabs Lucius forcing Ivy to leave the village in search of medicines but will the vicious monsters within the woods let her pass & what vengeance will they take on the village & those who live there...
Written, produced & directed by M. Night Shyamalan this was his fourth major film after the success he had with The Sixth Sense (1999), Unbreakable (2000) & Signs (2002) all of which I rather like for their horror mystery aspects & killer twist endings which has sort of become his trademark, The Village is probably the last really good film he has made & while it will undoubtedly divide audiences I did like it overall. The film is fairly slow going at times but it does build up really well with a certain sense of dread & anticipation on the part of the viewer, the twist ending is good & it's one of those ones where everything sort of falls into place nicely & everything that has gone before makes sense in context. The character's are alright if a little cold at times, the dialogue is sparse but meaningful & I felt like I was rewarded for sticking with it & following it properly. The lack of any sort of action might put some off & disappoint other's but I think if you give it a chance it's a satisfying experience. The film tries to be quite deep with the likes of fate & sticking with what you believe touched upon. However The Village is not perfect & the biggest problem I had with it was that while the ending depicts a community set-up to shun modern society & it's horrors for a more simpler & wholesome life surely creating the village's entire existence on horrible killer monsters lurking in the woods around it who may kill anyone at any point doesn't seem that great of an existence either as surely everyone would be living in constant fear?
The film looks great with impressive period detail & the cold naturalistic colour scheme suits the oppressive nature of the film, there's a lack of close-ups with plenty of shots where the camera is fixed & character's are quite far away with rams home the feel of isolation even more. There's some well crafted scenes like the fist attack on the village by the monsters & the scene where Lucius is stabbed as the scene starts out to innocuously but suddenly shifts into something much darker. There's very little horror here, there's no real gore or violence either. Originally called The Woods but there was another horror film called The Woods (2006) the same year so the title of this was changed to the Village.
With a supposed budget of about $70 odd million this is very well made with big budget Hollywood production values, filmed mainly in Pennsylvania in a couple of large fields where an entire town was built & then taken down again after filming had finished. The acting is very good too from a decent cast none of whom really stand out but are believable including Sigourney Weaver, Joaquin Phoenix, William Hurt & Brendan Gleeseon while Kirsten Dunst was replaced by Bryca Dallas Howard after she dropped out to make Elizabeth town (2005).
The Village is a film that may not appeal to everyone & it being advertised as a straight horror doesn't help but if you are prepared to stick with it & follow it through then it is pretty rewarding with a twist that I liked & thought worked well.