Village idiots

Rating: 1/10 (12 August 2004)

FOLLOWING COMMENTS CONTAIN SPOILERS...I THINK! Okay, you can't really spoil this movie because the ending is telegraphed from the start when the cameras pan the landscape and show a reasonably modern tower that's in stark contrast to the rest of the set. When I saw it at first, I really thought the director/camera guys had made a mistake by including it in the shot. But then it showed up again and again. (I must confess, I visited this movie set right after the filming and was certain that tower was for use in filming, not in the movie! When I saw it in the first shot, I was amazed at how dumb it was.) To all other appearances, the villagers of The Village look like they're from the 19th century, they talk very much like they're from the 19th century, but because everything is soooooo very 19th century, it becomes very apparent, very early on that this ain't no 19th century village. It's just been set up to look like one for purposes of the Village "elders" -- a group of very self righteous, very sure of themselves Amish-like folk who try to explain away the scalping of village animals and the partial painting of village doors by claiming it must have been a very big coyote. Yes, a coyote with a knife and a bucket of red paint. Even 19th century villagers aren't that stupid. The folks who made this movie must be basing the intelligence of the average American viewer on the intelligence of its current leaders, but to say this film is an insult doesn't quite explain why the writer/producers/director feel like they have to lay the whole thing out so plainly and so early on. The isolation of the Village always feels self serving, always contrived. Monsters in red cloaks? Eerie sounds emanating from the woods. And paranoia about the color red? Nothing in this movie makes sense either literally or metaphorically. In the end, it's just a silly love story with lots of scary music to make you nervous. The only violence is the stabbing by one villager (whose scary behavior is to shut up for most of the movie) by another (whose scary behavior is to giggle, dance and drool -- before becoming a homicidal maniac, of course.) The only really evil character (the real village idiot) falls into a hole and dies. The purported evil beings of the forest who terrorize and seem to imprison the villagers are cartoon characters when you see them about half way through the film. Just like the aliens in the "Signs" these are poorly conceived, almost stereotypical villains that make this a C, not even a B, movie. In the end, the resolution isn't really a resolution at all. Just verification of what you figured out in the movie's first few scenes. The scariest thing about this film is that there are people out there who actually thought this was a thriller and was any good.