Village of the Damned

1960 creepy movie

Rating: 16/20

Plot: The small village of Midwich lives a peaceful, damned-free existence. But things change when there's a mysterious blackout during which several of the women are impregnated. Less than nine months later, creepy big-headed blond children with psychic abilities and superior intellect are born. Damn it!

This movie isn't great from beginning to end, but most of it is made up of really great scenes. The stage is set immediately with the blackout and ensuing outsiders-trying-to-figure-things-out scenes. The black and white sudden ghost town, with its circling tractors and wrecked buses and overflowing tubs, is shot soundlessly in a way that creates a genuine unease. Later, you get the creepy children with their cheaply glowing eyeballs, and their vacant stares and monotone voices (although now that I think about it, there might have been only one who spoke) work to set a mood that contemporary directors may have tried to accomplish with overly-stylized shots or top-dollar effects. Of course, the final scene would have benefited from somebody spending a little dough. The finale also seemed a bit quick to me.