Village of the Damned

Plot synopsis:
After a series of establishing shots of a village in rural England, we switch to a study where Gordon Zelleby (George Sanders) is making arrangements by phone with his brother-in-law, Alan Bernard (Michael Gwynn) to come down for the day. In mid-sentence Gordon collapses to the floor.All through the town people have collapsed or passed out. Cars crash, phones ring unanswered. The local bell tower shows 10 minutes to 11.Alan, who an officer in the British army, reports to his superior that something strange seems to have happened in the village of Midwich, he asks permission to leave early. He wonders if the exercises the 4th Brigade are doing in the area could be responsible.Driving to the town, Berrnard encounters a local police officer Gobby, (Peter Vaughan) who is investigating the non appearance of a scheduled bus from Midwich. Rounding the next bend in the road the find the vehicle crashed in a ditch.Gobby investigates but passes out just like the people in the village. Bernard realizes something is terribly wrong and heads to the previous town to report to his commanding officer. The alarm is immediately raised and local area commanders are ordered to seal off the town and surrounding areas.Unsure what they are dealing with, soldiers are ordered forward carrying caged canaries attached to poles. When the birds pass out, the spot is marked. It is quickly noted the creatures return to life as soon as the cage is retrieved.At the site of the bus crash the army sends a volunteer in to the affected area. He is wearing a gas mask and tethered by rope so that if he collapses he can be pulled to safety. As they begin Dr Willers (Laurence Naismith) the local Midwich doctor arrives on his way back to the town.The soldier collapses as expected and is pulled to safety. Examination by Willers shows no obvious cause, and the man revives under his own power. Other than feeling intensely cold the solider reports he is perfectly fine.The army then sends a plane to overfly the town. The pilot reports nothing unusual other than absolutely nothing is moving in the area. The pilot takes his craft lower only to black out and crash in a nearby field.The military are considering their options when suddenly all the people in the bus and officer Gobby revive. We see images from all over town of people regaining consciousness and trying to understand what happened to them. In his study Gordon wakes as his wife Anthea Zellaby (Barbara Shelley) chides him for letting her sleep so late, she then comments its nearly 3 p.m.Gordon apologies that he also fell asleep, but given he woke on the floor of the study, he may have passed out. Discussing how they feel, the couple agrees they feel intensely cold and Gordon complains he can't feel his hands.Bernard arrives at the house and is pleased to see the couple are okay, he goes on to explain the events of the last four hours and Midwich was surrounded by some barrier that cut it off from the world.Through the rest of the day, military units pour into the town. The local townsfolk are subject to a battery of tests by specialists and the town is examined inch by inch for any unusual readings or signs of activity.Later, Gordon is invited to London by Bernard to take part in a meeting to review what occurred in the town. No direct after affect or cause for the phenomena has been discovered. This leads Gordon to be concerned about how they will identify long term effects if they can't understand the situation that caused it. Bernard suggests Gordon be put in charge of monitoring the towns population. The obvious solution would be to hospitalize them but this would create huge disruptions and potentially alert the press.Later, Anthea announces to Gordon that she is expecting a baby. Gordon is flustered but overjoyed by the news. Although Anthea is young, Gordon married quite late in life and never really expected the opportunity to raise children. At Doctor Willer's office, Milly Hughes (Pamela Buck) is devastated to find out she is also pregnant. Milly is distraught because she is still a virgin. Dr. Willers comforts her, but clearly he does not believe her.Tension is high in another household. Mrs. Pawle has just told her husband she is pregnant even though he's only just returned from a full year at sea.Concerned by the sudden rash of pregnancies, Doctor Willers and Gordon meet with the town vicar (Bernard Archard). An attempted suicide has been reported and the two men want to see what information the vicar might have, especially if any of the girls had confessed to the priest who the father might be. The Vicar has heard nothing from either Mrs Pawle or Milly, but is aware of three further girls who are also expecting. He is deeply troubled that one girl is only 15 years old.
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As three men compare the information they have, Dr Willers realizes that every woman of child-bearing age is the town expecting, and that all the pregnancies date from the day of the strange events.Five months later, the pregnancies are going well, too well according to Dr Willers. Each fetus appears to be at the 7th month of development even though the women are only in their fifth month. Anthea becomes depressed over the baby. She wants to know whose baby she is carrying, what sort of monster or strange child she is going to bring into the world. Gordon comforts her with the thought; all they can do is wait.The village becomes pensive and nervous as all the women go into labor at the same time. One of the first born, Anthea's child, is healthy 10-pounder, but the doctor in bothered by the child's strange eyes. We then learn that a total of 12 babies are born, all weighing a touch over 10 pounds and all with strange eyes.Four months later, the doctor examines some hair taken from Gordon's son, David. Aside from their odd fingernails and strange eyes, the children seem perfectly normal except that they have the developmental level of 18-month-old children.Upstairs in the Zellaby nursery a commotion breaks out. Anthea is in a state of panic and puts her hand in a pot of boiling water, burning it badly. It seems she forgot to test the child's milk and it was too hot for him.A year passes. David, now a toddler, spells out his name with blocks. As a test, Gordon then gives him a Chinese box puzzle. He works through the puzzle and opens it with alarming speed. Gordon then goes to a neighbor's home and tests their child; it opens the device without hesitation.A third child is tested but his older brother steals the puzzle. The child's eyes light with a strange glow, and the older boy falls into a trance and meekly returns the stolen puzzle.Years pass, and the children become inseparable and deal with the taunting from other children as a combined group. It is now becoming apparent that they can read minds.It is three years since the children were born, and Gordon is summoned to London for a special conference to discuss the children. Alan is becoming disturbed at Gordon's intellectual detachment from the issue of the strange behavior of the children. Gordon believes (unlike others in the village) that the children are not evil or bad, but just need to have morals instilled in them.In London, it is revealed that Midwich was not the only town that has experienced this phenomenon. In Australia, something went wrong and all the children died within 10 hours of birth. In Greenland and Mongolia, the children were killed at birth by frightened members of the community. One other group, born in the Soviet Union, is thriving and receiving the best of educations.Present at the meeting, Dr Carile suggests that the children may be a naturally occurring evolutionary jump. Others such as Professor Smith disagree and believe the children may be the product of an energy beam directed to Earth by some unknown intelligence.News comes through that a child has drowned in Midwich after having an altercation with the strange children, and they are being blamed for the event. George continues to defend them, arguing they need studying. They seem connected by a hive mind, and if humanity could control that, it was advance intelligence by a factor of 12.
To keep better control of the children, Zellaby suggests that they be kept together under one roof at Midwich's school. He offers to run the project and continue studying them for another 12 months while the government decides the best course of actions.Back in Midwich, Zellaby begins teaching the children. They now openingly admit that they can read thoughts at the front of his mind, but have not mastered the complete understanding of everything he is thinking. Deciding to test Dr Smith's theory, he asks the children about life on other planets. The children go into a communal trance and refuse to answer Gordon's question. He rephrases the question but the children still refuse to answer. Gordon then asks David what he intends to do with the powers the children are developing. David tells Gordon he knows what Gordon is really trying to find out and it would be better if these types of questions were not asked. David says they are here to learn from him.Later, Mrs Zellaby witnesses one of the special girls nearly killed by a car. The driver jumps out, fretting that he may have hurt the girl. Some of the other special children who witnessed the incident begin to gather around the driver. The man seems to slip into a trance, returns to his car and drives it without hesitation into a wall, being killed on impact.At an inquest into the accident, Mrs Zellaby is called as a witness. Her testimony is confused and lacking detail, as if she is trying to remember something but can't. Ultimately they court records a verdict of accidental death.On a country road, the brother of the man killed tries to ambush the children. Gordon talks him out of the attempt, but before he can leave he is spotted by the children. They put him into the same trance his brother fell into and fatally shoots himself with his own gun.Zellaby now understands how deep the situation is. He'd hoped to communicate with them, but clearly the process is breaking down. He realizes they need to somehow be stopped before they expand their power beyond the village. Zellaby and Bernard are discussing the best course of action when news comes through from Russia. The other surviving colony has been destroyed by an atomic shell fired from 60 miles away. The entire population, including the children, has been killed.Back at Midwich, the panicked villagers decide they need to do something about the children. The men form a mob and, armed with farm implements and flaming torches, advance on the school house with the intention of burning it down and trapping the children inside. David goes outside to confront the advancing villagers. David then puts the man in a tell take trance and forces him to set fire to himself, only releasing him from his control when the man is close to death.Bernard witnesses the failed attack and enters the school to confront David, who is aware of the Russian colony's fate. David warns Bernard that an attack on this colony won't succeed. When Bernard asks why, the boy responds, "This group MUST survive."David then takes control of Bernard and reinforces a message that the children just want to be left alone; they drive that into him before releasing him. Later, Bernard is examined by Dr Willers who believes Bernard is suffering the worst case of shock he's ever seen.David arrives at the house and confronts his father. He tells the man the children have decided to leave the village and spread out across the country. Their power has reached a point where each child can found a new colony. David then outlines a series of travel arrangements he wants Gordon to organize to help the children disperse.Gordon comes up with a plan to get through to the children; sensing Anthea's fear, he arranges for her to travel back to London with Alan. As Alan says goodbye, Gordon seems very introspective and on the verge of crying.
Now alone in the house, we understand Gordon's emotions. He is building a bomb he hopes will destroy the children if he can keep his mind blank enough to avoid detetection. He begins to practice imagining a brick wall in his mind to help build a mental barrier that the children can't penetrate.On the drive to London, Anthea realizes something is wrong, and insists on returning to Midwich to try and stop Gordon from doing whatever he's planned.Gordon arrives at the school, and David senses immediately that he is nervous and ill at ease. The children try to break down his mental defense of the brick wall. Gordon holds out long enough to avoid any chance of the children escaping. At the last second, Gordon's mind collapses and the children realize he's been hiding a bomb.Anthea arrives at the school just as an explosion rips through the building. She immediately understands the implications of Gordon's sacrifice in killing the children and himself.Chapman_glen@yahoo.com

Tags: murder

Review:
Young Martin Stephens, who also turned in a creepy performance in the ghostly masterpiece "The Innocents" is every bit as creepy here as George and Barbara's "son." Filmed in moody black and white, this movie creeps along with all the menacing stealth of a thick London pea souper.
This classic low budget, black and white film is right up there with the best of the sci-fi/horror movies of the time.
This kid is evil personified and does a bang-up job for such a youngster.The story involves the village of Midwich and the birth of 12 children fathered in a very strange way that is never totally explained, who are intellectual giants with one purpose.....take over the world.
If you enjoy sci-fi classics like "The Day the Earth Stood Still" and "Them!"; if you love the Britishness of the Hammer horror pictures; if you prefer a well-told story, rich suspense, sympathetic characters and black-and-white photography to special effects, color and gore, you will want to see this film right away.The movie begins in Midwich.
All Midwich women of childbearing age are unaccountably pregnant.Watching this science-fiction movie paired with almost any modern one demonstrates how storytelling has devolved as special effects have advanced.
Also some superb acting by George Sanders, Barbara Shelley (as his wife) and those creepy little kids (especially Martin Stephens) helps a lot.
Despite having a small budget, few special effects and an unknown cast (aside from George Sanders), it is an engrossing and terrifying sci-fi adventure.The movie begins with a VERY STRANGE occurrence--a small village just STOPS.
Village of the Damned is one of those discerning, intelligent science fiction films of yesteryear that tends to leave much to your imagination in terms of gore and violence as well as make you think and ponder important questions about the limits with which humanity should go to procure knowledge.
An suspenseful and interesting premise dealing about several strangely emotionless children all born at the same time in a small village in Midwich .
The children that are born out of these pregnancies seem to grow very fast and they all have the same blond hair and strange, penetrating eyes that make people do things , all of them have telephatic powers , the stare will paralyze the will of the villagers .
Meanwhile a government officer (good performance by George Sanders) along with the doctor (Laurence Naismith) attempt to stop their plans of conquest .This classic Sci-Fi thriller contains chills , suspense , intrigue and creepy events about some precocious deadly children and their quest of power .
Eerie and strange plot very well developed by the screen-written Sterling Silliphant based on John Wyndham novel titled "The Midwich Cuckoos" that focuses a British village visited by some unknown life form which leaves the women of the village pregnant.
Performance is frankly good as main cast as Barbara Shelley and Ronald Colman was originally supposed to star in this film but he passed away in 1958 and was replaced by an excellent George Sanders who married Colman's widow Benita Hume .
It's subsequently made an acceptable remake (1995) titled ¨John Carpenter's Village of the damned¨ with the same premise still interesting enough to watch it and starred by Kirstie Alley , Christopher Reeve and Mark Hamill ; however, it suffers from unimaginative account because being a copy from original film with more violent and explicit scenes and fails to provide the intelligent atmosphere from previous story ..
Village of the Damned makes use of a variety of very easily done but also very effective special effects, such as the boundary across which all people and animals lose consciousness, the creepy eyes on those kids, and their hypnotic powers.
Village of the Damned takes black and white photography and fills it with excellent acting, a fascinating story, and good direction that makes me wonder why this was the only film that Wolf Rilla ever directed..
Village of the Damned is directed by Wolf Rilla and is a fairly faithful adaptation of the novel The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham.
A couple of years down the line the film was relocated to England and shot on location at Letchmore Heath, with Sanders stepping in for the recently passed away Colman.The peaceful English village of Midwich falls victim to a strange occurrence that sees the inhabitants fall asleep for several hours.
Come the births of the children it's apparent that all is not well here in this once sleepy little village.The 1950s was a great decade for the sci-fi movie fan, with the paranoia of potential atomic war and communist fervour taking hold, a ream of B movie schlockers tapped into this feverish air of mistrust.
Horrible, creepy, blonde haired, blank staring, children.The film in truth is too short to fully do justice to Wyndham's frightening novel, while other issues such as the barely believable coupling of Sanders and Shelley ensures the film has a lot of creakiness within.
I always thought it was supposed to be a parody of Children of the Corn, but then I was watching 100 Scariest Movie Moments on Bravo and Village of the Damned came on and then the light bulb went on that this was the story the Simpsons made fun of.
This is one of the creepiest horror movies I have ever seen, so many people who always told me that creepy kids scare them, I never understood why until I saw this film last night, it gave me nightmares.
Granted, I know that it's cheesy and you can easily MST3K your way through it, but watching this in the dark with those creepy glowing eyes is an image I will never get out of my head.In the small English village of Midwich everybody and everything falls into a deep, mysterious sleep for several hours in the middle of the day.
Some months later every woman capable of child-bearing is pregnant and the children that are born out of these pregnancies seem to grow very fast and they all have the same blond hair and strange, penetrating eyes that make people do things they don't want to do.Village of the Damned is a very memorable film and just scared the living day lights out of me.
Based on John Wyndham's novel The Midwich Cuckoos, this tale of a mysterious blacking out of an English village and the more mysterious children born in its wake has becoming something of a genre classic in five decades since it was released.
Consequently, the score ranges continuously between being highly effective or out of place to the point of clashing.Village Of The Damned has become a classic of the science fiction genre all thanks to a fine combination of a great cast, Wolf Rilla's direction, Geoffrey Faithful's cinematography and a fine script.
The idea of alien children dominating adults and killing them with just a look of their shinning eyes works perfectly and makes an interesting sci-fi or even horror story that keeps tension till the end.
It benefits from the quaint setting of an isolated English town, and the acting is largely pretty good, especially that of the creepy children.This 1960 film is much better than the 1995 American remake, which went for gore and loud bangs rather than tension..
Intelligent low-key sci-fi thriller about a small English village where all the women become mysteriously pregnant and give birth to strange emotionless children with telepathic abilities.
Towards the end, Professor Zellaby, whose wife has given birth to one of these little monsters, heads to the place where they are staying with a suitcase full of dynamite...Village of the Damned is shot on location in a English country village, from which you get a sense of a small rural community typical of England.The excellent cast includes several familiar faces: Falcon actor George Sanders, Hammer regular Barbara Shelley (Quatermass and the Pit, Dracula: Prince of Darkness), Laurence Naismith (The Valley of Gwangi, Jason and the Argonauts), Martin Stephens (The Innocents), Michael Gwynn (The Revenge of Frankenstein) and Peter Vaughan (Porridge).Village of the Damned is a good way to spend an hour and a quarter one evening.
It occurred to me while watching Village Of The Damned that if George Sanders hadn't been talking to his brother-in-law Michael Gwynne an army officer when the mass fainting started, whoever was behind the events in the film might have gotten away with whatever the plan was.
This brings in the military eventually and a cordon of secrecy is put on the events when it seems the whole town within a defined perimeter was given a cosmic Mickey Finn.Even stranger though nine months to the day of the event, several women of child bearing age give birth to some very strange children with blond hair and piercing eyes that turn red with concentration.
Several months later, scientist Gordon Zellaby(played by George Sanders) links the blackouts to the oddity of all women of child-bearing age being pregnant at the same time.
The children born all oddly look alike with blond hair and expressionless faces, though with a high intelligence, which includes his wife Anthea(played by Barbara Shelley) and his "son" David(played most effectively by Martin Stephens).
"Village of the Damned", based upon Wyndham's "The Midwich Cuckoos" should also have been an American film, but MGM, who had acquired the film rights to the novel, shelved the project, fearing that the mysterious, unexplained pregnancies which form a vital part of the plot could be taken as a comment on the Christian doctrine of the Virgin Birth.
Doubtlessly one of the most magnificent classics of British Sci-Fi Horror, Wolf Rilla's "Village of the Damned" of 1960 is a film that includes some of the eeriest moments ever brought to screen.
An adaptation of John Wyndham's novel "The Midwich Cuckoos", "Village of the Damned" treats the timeless and always creepy 'eerie children'-theme, and it does so in a very creepy and effective manner.One day, the English village of Midwich is infested with a mysterious force.
Really effective.The Children are creepy (and the kid who played David is really good!), the special effects competent, the direction by Wolf Rilla is good, and I also liked the score by well-known film composer Ron Goodwin (also known for "Frenzy", "When Eagles Dare", and "The Day of the Triffids" among others).
"Village of the Damned", adapted, by Stirling Silliphant, the film's director Wolf Rilla and George Barclay, from the famous novel by John Wyndham "The Midwich Cuckoos" is often an absorbing film.
One cannot discuss this film's eerie story line without disclosing too much of its evolving direction; suffice it to say that one day, strange occurrences happen in a number of countries: everyone blacks out for four hours in the small town of Midwich England as elsewhere, the setting being the one for the British whose fortunes we follow.
Emotionless, ruthless and deadly, they grow to pose a threat, not just to the people of Midwich, but the whole world and must be destroyed—but how do you hide the truth from children who can read your mind and kill with a thought?Very few malevolent movie moppets have been quite as sinister as the blonde haired, glowing eyed kids in Village of the Damned, one of the earliest horrors to depict children as a force of evil, and still one of the best.
Based on the novel ' The Midwich Cuckoos' by John Wyndham, this low budget classic of British horror's strength lies not in showy special effects but in excellent writing, effective direction and perfectly nuanced performances, with the child actors just as brilliant as their adult counterparts (so many similarly themed films are let down by their unconvincingly threatening sprogs).
Village of the Damned is a great British horror film based on the novel The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham.
It combines an eerie atmosphere with good direction and a fine lead performance by George Saunders to produce a classic work of sci-fi horror.The film's eerie opening is a masterpiece in its own right.
i found this to be one creepy and eerie science fiction/suspense classic.it doesn't rely on musical cues for scares.(not that there's anything wrong with that,mind you)but more on the performances,especially of the children.they're all very effective,but the standout is Martin Stevens who plays David,the leader of the children.the special effects(well actually only one special effect;you'll know it when you see it)they used worked very very well at conveying that chilling feeling of dread and doom.but beyond that,the acting was very good all round.the pacing of the film was also good.there's not a boring minute.for me,Village of the Damned(1960)is an 8/10.
VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED (1960)Good science fiction film about an invisible alien force which impregnates all the eligible women of a small British town, resulting in the accelerated birth of super-intelligent children who pose a threat to the community.
I hope that the people who had nightmares from this film were only joking as Village of the Damned was spooky in the least.There were a few creepy scenes to find containing the children but that was it.
Anyway I feel that Village of the Damned has only became a cult classic probably because the children or the creepiness of their stare.Maybe Village of the Damned is only predictable because I've seen too many films with the evil child(ren) aspect but there isn't much to like about this movie.
A simple premise brought to life in a sophisticated fashion, Village of the Damned is a smartly scripted & aptly narrated sci-fi horror that comes enveloped with a sinister vibe from its opening moments and is a downright spooky chiller that has effectively managed to stand the test of time over the years.The story of Village of the Damned takes place in an English rural setting where one day all the inhabitants are mysteriously incapacitated for few hours and later find out that every child-bearing woman in the community is pregnant.
When they awaken, they find that women in the village have fallen pregnant, and after a harrowingly brief pregnancy, the children are born, emotionless, blonde-haired geniuses with one mind and the ability to see into other people's.The lack of really disturbing moments in the movie makes me wonder if the filmmakers were a little bit standoffish in regard to the subject matter.
This is a fine horror/sci fi movie with some creepy moments, a cast of talented actors and outstanding direction.It is quite disturbing how the children of the film are able to control everyone and everything around them and treating the whole situation as a typical child-like way.A classic of its kind and better than the 1995 remake - although that version is watchable..
Wait until you see the children ******** Village of the Damned (12/7/60) Wolf Rilla ~ George Sanders, Martin Stephens, Barbara Shelley, Michael Gwynne.
A film like 'Village of the Damned (1960)' could probably have never been made in the United States at this time, considering the story's sensitive and sinister themes of immaculate conception and child murder, but the Brits know exactly how to make horror work.The film was adapted from John Wyndham's 1957 novel, "The Midwich Cuckoos," a book title that gives me an eerie chill every time I read it.
Village of the damned is a sci-fi horror, where a small town strangely falls asleep for several hours, and the women become pregnant as a result.
In the English village of Midwich, the blond-haired, glowing-eyed children of uncertain paternity prove to have frightening powers.This film is the sort of thing that would have been an episode of "Twilight Zone".
Will Gordon be capable to keep the children under control?"Village of the Damned" is a mysterious and scary horror movie, with an original story in the style of "The Twilight Zone".
A cheap, well executed British SciFi film about a cohort of superintelligent, mind-reading children growing up in a small English village.The original title of the story, I think, was "The Midwitch Cuckoos," a less exploitative but far more appropriate title than "Village of the Damned." We may think of cuckoos as a cute wooden thing that comes out of a gingerbread clock and makes funny noises to announce the time, but that's because we are not birds.
In what is perhaps the film's most effective sequence, we see the villagers drop in their tracks one by one, including Professor Gordon Zellaby (the great George Sanders) and his pretty, younger wife, Anthea (Barbara Shelley, who would go on to star in many horror films for Hammer Studios).
The great thing about his stories is that, no matter how far fetched the plots, you feel as though they are credible.His other famous work must be 'The Midwich Cuckoos' which was filmed in 1960 for M.G.M. as 'Village Of The Damned'.
This was his 'Midwich Cuckoos' and as no monsters had to be mocked-up and as it only affected a small, isolated English village instead of the whole world, no special effects were necessary and the director and his budget could concentrate on story, acting and script.This is exactly what the movie does.
One day in the small village of Midwich everyone falls into a deep sleep and when they awake all the woman of child bearing age are discovered to be pregnant Nine months later they give birth to a group of blond haired children with strange eyes who are connected mentally and can make people do things.
This little British sci-fi/horror was obviously shot on a minimum budget but that doesn't matter.The children were incredible and when their eyes turned the black and white filming actually added to the spookiness and I felt the hairs standing up on the back of my neck.This film was remade by John Carpenter and starred Christopher Reeve and i quite liked the remake but this film wins hands down.The children are more creepy,the lack of special effects made it scarier and George Sanders does a better job in the final scene than Christopher Reeve did in the remake as fine an actor as he was.