Village of the Damned is a 1995 American science fiction-horror film directed by John Carpenter and a remake of the 1960 British film.
Plot[]
All of the people and animals within the quiet coastal town of Midwich in California's Marin County fall unconscious for six hours. Following this "blackout," ten females are mysteriously pregnant. Five boys and four girls are born, but the fifth girl is stillborn.
The boys and girls soon pair up like mates, except David, whose partner died, and he walks in the back of the group alone. All of them show psychic abilities, which they use when they're feeling attacked or threatened. David is the only one who develops human feelings, due to the loss of his future partner.
Mara is the leader of the group, and Robert is her partner. She's the daughter of a local physician, Dr. Alan Chaffee and his wife, Barbara. As a toddler, Mara used her mental abilities to force her mother to burn herself in a pot of boiling water, and later used her mental abilities to force her mother to commit suicide by jumping off a hill.
The children soon move to the town barn to use as their classroom and for survival. Alan eventually realizes how dangerous they truly are, since they have no feelings, except for David. He also learns about the ability to build a mental wall to protect his thoughts from them. In the meantime, the children continue to commit murders for various reasons.
Mara, Robert, and David soon find Dr. Susan Verner, and Mara and Robert use their psychic abilities to force her to lead them to David's future partner, and David is devastated seeing her well-preserved alien corpse in her laboratory. It turns out that she kept her in her laboratory for scientific research, and she spent years building a mental wall to protect her thoughts, so the children would never know about it. Mara and Robert then use their psychic abilities to force Dr. Verner to stab herself to death with a scalpel.
Alan Chaffee devises the plan to kill them all with a time bomb using the brick wall trick to hide his thoughts. David's mother, Jill McGowan arrives, and David breaks free from the group by knocking Mara down to the floor when they try to kill his mother, and Alan yells at David and his mother to leave the building. Mara eventually breaks through Alan's mental wall and her alien form starts to show through. The children then see the bomb, and they look at the clock. The bomb explodes, killing everyone inside, including Alan.
While driving away, David's mother tells him not to worry, and that they'll go someplace where nobody knows who they are. David looks out into the distance.
Cast[]
- Christopher Reeve as Dr. Alan Chaffee
- Kirstie Alley as Dr. Susan Verner
- Linda Kozlowski as Jill McGowan
- Mark Hamill as Reverend George
- Karen Kahn as Barbara Chaffee
- Lindsey Haun as Mara Chaffee
- Thomas Dekker as David McGowan
Production[]
Attempts were already made before to remake Village of the Damned since Invasion of the Body Snatchers had been successfully remade in 1978. It finally wounded up at Universal who approached Carpenter to remake it because of his success in remaking the movie The Thing from Another World.
Unlike the original 1960 version, where David is the evil leader of the group, this David in the remake becomes more human after his future partner is stillborn, Additionally, the special effects for the movie are better developed because of the advances made in that area since then.
It was also the last movie Christopher Reeve starred in before he was paralyzed on May 27, 1995 from a horse race which left him a spinal cord injury that turned him into a quadriplegic. He died on October 10, 2004 at the age of 52.
Reception[]
The movie was a box office failure. It also received a mediocre critical response. Finally, it is not considered by them as one of the best movies of John Carpenter.
