Synopsis: At
eleven o’clock one morning, every living creature in the village of Midwich suddenly
falls into unconsciousness. Cut off in the middle of a telephone conversation with his
brother-in-law, Professor Gordon Zellaby (George Sanders), Major Alan Bernard (Michael
Gwynn) finds that he is unable to reach anyone in Midwich by phone. Worried, he leaves
town early on his planned visit to his sister, Anthea (Barbara Shelley). Outside the
village, Alan meets the local constable (Peter Vaughan), who has been sent to look for an
overdue bus. The bus, which is full of unconscious passengers, is found to have run off
the road. As the policeman bikes towards it, he collapses. Alan turns his car around and
goes for military assistance. It is established that the "influence" has clearly
defined boundaries. A soldier wearing a respirator crosses the invisible line, and
immediately loses consciousness. He is pulled to safety and quickly recovers, complaining
that he is icy cold. A fly-over determines that nothing and no-one in Midwich is moving.
Going lower, the pilot passes out; his plane crashes. Then, without warning, everyone
wakes up. They are unharmed. Alan hurries up to the Manor, and informs the bewildered
Zellabys that everyone in the village was affected, not just themselves. A full
investigation is ordered into the phenomenon, but nothing is found to explain the
mystery…. Several weeks later, a beaming Anthea tells Gordon that they are going to
have a baby. He is overjoyed. But in the village, there are other, less welcome
pregnancies: a woman whose husband has been away; a seventeen-year-old virgin…. When
the situation is made clear to him, the vicar (Bernard Archard) reluctantly admits to Dr
Willers (Laurence Naismith) and Gordon that four girls have confessed their pregnancies to
him, all insisting that they cannot account for them. The three men realise that all of
the pregnancies - including Anthea's - date from Midwich’s collapse…. The
pregnant women undergo medical examination. Dr Willers tells Gordon that Anthea’s
baby is perfectly normal, but advanced: a seven-month foetus after only five months.
Anthea’s only response to the news is a frightened demand to know whose baby
she is carrying…? All of the Midwich babies are born within a few hours of each
other. They are perfectly formed, all over ten pounds, with blonde hair and strange,
arresting eyes. Four months later, the babies are physically like children of eighteen
months of age. Examining his son, Gordon points out to Dr Willers that his hair is unusual
– the strands are flat on one side – and his fingernails narrower than normal.
Suddenly, there is a scream from the nursery. To his horror, Gordon finds Anthea holding
her hand in boiling water. He drags her away. She sobs that the bottle that she gave the
baby was too hot, and that suddenly, she felt compelled to injure herself…. A
year later, Gordon shows Alan a startling thing: he hides a chocolate in a Chinese puzzle
box and gives it to his son, who swiftly solves the puzzle. Still more amazing, when
Gordon gives the box to two other of the strange children, they are also able to open it.
Gordon insists that the children are not only intellectually advanced, but share a
communal mind: when one learns something, they all know it, instantly. At that moment, an
older sibling of one of the children grabs the puzzle box. As the adults look on in
horror, the eyes of the two blonde children begin to glow with an eerie light. Against his
will, the boy is compelled to hand back the box….
Comments: This
intriguing adaptation of John Wyndham’s novel, "The Midwich Cuckoos", is a
beautifully restrained and creepy little film, although not one without flaws. Much of its
power comes via two pieces of serendipity. Firstly, when the project was in the planning
stages, the Catholic Legion Of Decency objected to Village Of The Damned’s
central themes of mysterious impregnation and virgin birth. Consequently, the film could
not be produced in the U.S., and was instead made on location in England, in
Hertfordshire. The resulting location shooting both adds to the overall atmosphere of the
film, and lends an uncomfortable air of authenticity to the events of the story. Secondly,
this was a low budget production, and accordingly shot in black and white. This, too,
gives the film a distinct sense of reality; and it also helps to overcome what could have
been its biggest flaw – and which instead, perversely enough, is probably the one
thing it is best known for. Village Of The Damned is a film that has managed, at
least on one level, to enter the collective unconscious. The blonde-haired children and
their glowing eyes comprise one of science fiction’s most recognisable images.
Nevertheless, those eyes were the production’s single biggest mistake. The children
themselves – their appearance, their lack of emotion, the choreography of their
movements, their determined unchild-likeness – are quite disturbing, quite alien
enough. The glowing eyes were unnecessary; and worse, they look exactly like what they
are: a tacky special effect. (The eye business was apparently forced upon Wolf Rilla by
the film’s producers, as a sop to the perceived requirements of the film’s
American audience.) However, the black and white cinematography helps somewhat to disguise
the crudity of the effect, while at the same time, highlighting the similarities of the
children’s appearance in a way that colour photography could not have done (and, many
years later, did not do). The performances of the child actors, as
far as they go, are all very good; we can believe in the unity of the interlopers’
minds. One of the film’s most unnerving moments comes when a man who had planned to
harm the children does not get out of mental "range" quickly enough. As one, the
children freeze; their heads swivel; they move closer together…. Of course, the fact
that the children communicate primarily by telepathy means that the demands made upon the
acting abilities of the young cast were limited – in all but one case. Village Of
The Damned’s master-stroke was the casting of Martin Stephens as the leader of
the brood, David Zellaby. It is through David that we come to understand the working of
the alien mind that is dominating Midwich. Both Gordon and Anthea, in their own way,
attempt to reach the boy on an emotional level, and both fail utterly. The scenes of David
interacting with his mother are, in particular, quite chilling. As Anthea fusses over him,
caressing him, and trying vainly to win some response from him, David simply stands there,
radiating indifference, and perhaps a little contempt. (These scenes are almost guaranteed
to get under the skin of any parent with a problem child.) Martin Stephens’
performance as David is the high point of the film; his air of cool, detached superiority,
as much as anything else, makes us comprehend the extent of the threat posed to humanity.
Stephens was eleven when the film was shot and, like many good child actors, both looked
younger than he was, and seemed older. In addition, he never gave the impression
that he was simply "reciting", but rather that he understood every word of his
dialogue, and all of its implications. (It is a sad comment upon society today, perhaps,
that Stephens’ intelligence and articulateness are enough to make him seem like an
alien!) While Stephens is good here, the following year he would go on to give his best
performance, one still more disturbingly ambiguous, in Jack Clayton’s The
Innocents.
Apart from the benefit gained from the
setting, the filming of Village Of The Damned in England had some other welcome
side-effects, one of them being the presence of some marvellous British character actors
in the minor roles, particularly Laurence Naismith as Dr Willers, Bernard Archard as the
tormented village minister, and Richard Vernon as the Home Secretary. All three of the
central adult performances are effective, although to varying degrees. Barbara Shelley,
unfortunately, aside from a few telling scenes with Martin Stephens, is not given all that
much to do; Anthea seems to spend most of the film being sent out of the room. In
contrast, Michael Gwynn makes the most of his far more substantial role as Alan Bernard, a
man with a foot in both camps: brother and brother-in-law to one set of involuntary
parents, and uncle to their unnatural child; yet simultaneously attached to the
government, and partially responsible for deciding what action will be taken regarding the
children. It is Alan who first perceives the extent of the threat, and who perceives also
that Gordon Zellaby is too close to the problem, and too captivated by the mystery of the
children, for his judgement to be unclouded. And indeed, Gordon is your typical
science fiction protagonist, ominously fascinated by "the unknown". That said,
Gordon is anything but a typical role for George Sanders, whom we see here as loving
husband, proud expectant father, trusted government official, affectionate friend and,
yes, hero – if a somewhat equivocal one. Village Of The Damned offered
Sanders one of his best late career roles, and he is first-rate in it, being
simultaneously sympathetic and worrying as he responds to the conflicting demands of the
heart and the mind.
The opening sequence of Village Of The
Damned is well-nigh perfect. In a series of low-key, dialogue-less scenes, we see the
immediate effects of the mysterious "event": a tractor trundling around in
ever-diminishing circles; overflowing sinks; an iron burning through a dress. The first
outside observer on the spot, Alan Bernard, very sensibly turns tail and goes for help.
The military investigation that follows is still more disquieting. A canary passed over an
invisible barrier collapses, then recovers upon being drawn back. A soldier crosses the
line to discover that his respirator is no protection at all; he comes to complaining that
he is icy cold. A pilot who flies under five thousand feet over the village also loses
consciousness, and dies in a fiery crash. Then, as abruptly as it began, the
"event" ends. The investigation continues, with no evidence of any of the usual
suspects – radiation, of course, or nerve gas – to be found. And eventually,
life in Midwich returns to normal….for a time. What follows is the most powerful
section of the film. After the brief respite of Anthea’s joyful announcement of her
pregnancy (although they trot out the irritating cliché of pickle cravings, there is a
nice moment when Anthea remarks that the first person to know of her condition was the
woman at the grocer’s), the scene moves to the village, where other pregnancies are
being greeted with anger and fear. A wife looks pleadingly, despairingly at her husband,
who has been away from home for a year; he storms from the house in inexpressible fury. A
young girl breaks down in anguish in the doctor’s office, insisting that it is
impossible, impossible…. Finally realising that there are simply too many
pregnancies, the doctor confronts the local minister, who is induced to break confidence:
four girls have disclosed their secret to him. The timing of the mass conception is
evident. Extra medical personnel are sent for, and a temporary clinic established. (Of
course, it is taken for granted that all the pregnancies will go to term, regardless of
their origin. When the village doctor tells an unmarried prospective mother that he will
"do anything I can to help you", he definitely does not mean the first
thing that probably comes to a modern viewer’s mind. A product of its time, Village
Of The Damned dares not even hint at abortion.) In perhaps the film’s most
indelible moment, we see the affected villagers – one man accompanied by his wife and
his daughter – filing silently in and out of the clinic, not one person making eye
contact with any other….
It is here that Village Of The Damned
shifts perspective, and leads into what, in my opinion, is the film’s single biggest
flaw. After all, on one level at least, this is a story about rape, and the consequences
of rape; and yet other than in a few scenes with Anthea, the film is never about
its women! On the contrary, its focus is divided between the village men, smouldering with
impotent fury, lashing out at a "rival", a despoiler, that they cannot see or
touch, and the male authority figures trying to deal with the situation: first Gordon and
the doctor, then the military, then the government. As for the women, they don’t seem
to have an opinion on the subject (or if they do, they’re never invited to express
it); they’re simply there to bear and raise their offspring. Other than Anthea, we
never see any of them being mothers. How do they feel about their unnatural
offspring? Do they love them? Can they love them? We never know. All action, all reaction
to the children is exclusively male – including all retaliatory acts of violence.
Towards the end of the film, the village men, drunk and hostile (the one person seen
benefiting from the situation is the village publican; the men spend most of their spare
time in his establishment), form themselves into the traditional torch-bearing mob.
Significantly, there are women – non-mothers, we assume – present when
the mob forms, but they do not join it. Like their maternal sisters, they do nothing more
than peer at events from behind the curtains of their homes. Village Of The Damned
only runs about seventy-five minutes; it would have been a stronger film had it been about
ten minutes longer, and dealt with this issue. Similarly, what about the children in the
context of their families? There is an intriguing moment during the puzzle box scene, when
one of the children’s "normal" siblings snatches the object for himself,
his jealousy and resentment obvious. Yet this is never followed up in any way. The only
affected family we see is the Zellabys; and David is an only child. This highlights
another disturbing aspect of the film. The mysterious "event" may have crossed
the class barriers of Midwich, but the screenplay never does. Perhaps it was a hangover
from the novel, or perhaps it was an unconscious piece of snobbery, but throughout the
film there is the unmistakable inference that what is happening up at "the
Manor" is more important than what’s happening in the village; that
Anthea’s situation, for instance, is somehow "worse" than that of the
village women. This notion comes to a head when Gordon demonstrates to Alan the
children’s communal mind. Intent on his theory, he simply barges his way into one of
the village houses (the one where both mother and daughter have given birth) and starts
mucking around with the children, without so much as a by-your-leave (and completely
ignoring one of the mothers’ objection that she never gives her child chocolate). The
women, of course, simply put up with his behaviour. And later, as the children grow older,
it comes as no surprise to anyone that it is the boy from "the Manor" who is
their leader. Who else would it be?
Village Of The Damned never
spells out the origin of the children. When Gordon interrogates them on the subject, their
only response is lowered eyes and a calm "It would be better if you didn’t ask
these questions" from David. Naturally, however, alien impregnation is the favoured
theory. Still – it is the suggested alternative that I find intriguing: that the
children are the result of some kind of mutation, and in fact represent the next stage in
human evolution. It is interesting to compare Village Of The Damned with some of
its more obvious descendants, the It’s Alive movies of Larry Cohen. Dealing
with similar themes, all of these films suggest that Homo sapiens may well find its
evolutionary successor both repulsive and terrifying. Similarly, it is fascinating to
contrast the horrified reaction of Frank Davis, biological father to a monstrous infant in
It’s Alive, to the cool detachment of Gordon Zellaby. Alan Bernard, angered by
Gordon’s refusal to see the danger so apparent to himself, accuses him of wanting to
live through David. ("The next Einstein!" he sneers. "Perhaps
greater!" retorts Gordon.) But when Alan makes a scornful reference to "Your
son", Gordon denies the connection. "Anthea’s son; I have no
evidence that he is mine." There is regret in Gordon’s manner – regret that
he may never be a father, still more that he is not the father of such a remarkable
child; yet the fact that he is clearly not David’s real father lets Gordon off
the emotional hook; he is able, at least for a time, to indulge his fascination with the
children without feeling responsible.
In many ways, Village Of The Damned
sits comfortably within the accepted boundaries of fifties science fiction. As in numerous
other films, the Earth is (probably) invaded by an alien race, whose supreme intelligence
is joined to a lack of emotion; and a human scientist becomes obsessed with trying to
understand and communicate with the aliens, with dangerous consequences. Many science
fiction films of this era, particularly American ones, are marked by an intense streak of
anti-intellectualism. Intelligence per se seemed often to be considered suspect, as
something "naturally" divorced from emotion, and morals. Time and again, alien
invaders (whatever their origin) who were mankind’s (or America’s) intellectual
superiors were ultimately – inevitably - defeated by emotional human beings. (This
theme is essentially bookended by, on one hand, Robert Cornthwaite’s insistence in The
Thing that the alien’s lack of emotion makes it "our superior in every
way", and by Peter Graves’ "He learned almost too late that man is a feeling
creature…." speech from It Conquered The World on the other.) Scientists,
those dangerous lunatics, were most at threat from such invaders, of course, being
by nature peculiarly susceptible to the hollow lure of the intellect.
Thus, in Village Of The Damned it is
decidedly a matter of course that it should be Gordon Zellaby who becomes fascinated by
the children, and who misguidedly assumes that they will allow him to "teach"
them. (Gordon is very much a movie scientist, inasmuch as we never find out what he is a
professor of. His position as government adviser, and the lessons we see him giving
the children, suggests that he is a physicist; but it is he who oversees the collection of
the biological specimens after the "event", and who subsequently conducts
certain botanical experiments.) Village Of The Damned does, however, find a
refreshing twist to this standard science fiction situation. Far from conceding that
"intellect" and "emotion" are naturally incompatible, Gordon’s
belief in the children stems from his inability to accept that such intelligence could
possibly exist in the absence of emotions and a moral sense. Having convinced the
government to allow him to take responsibility for the children, and to spend time
attempting to teach them not just facts, but a sense of right and wrong, Gordon must
finally face the bitter knowledge that he has failed: all mind and no heart, the children
are indeed monstrous. But as it happens, Gordon has reached them. "In a
strange sort of way, they trust me," he observes sadly, and so they do. The
film’s final irony is that the invaders would have been better off had they kept
their intellectual barriers firmly in place: their acceptance of Gordon makes them
vulnerable when he finally comes to the reluctant realisation that he, and he alone,
stands any chance of defeating them.
As the children grow, so too do their powers;
and Village Of The Damned becomes a film of escalating mayhem, from the enforced
scalding of Anthea when David is a baby, through to the threatened annihilation of any
troops sent against them. Nevertheless, there are some intriguing inconsistencies in the
children’s actions. Early on, sensing that the grocer is frightened of them, they
show unexpected consideration in promising to stay away from her shop in the future. When
a boy deliberately hits one of the invaders, Nancy, with a ball, David stops her from
retaliating; yet at the same time, we hear of an increase in the number of
"accidental deaths" amongst the village children. When a man almost strikes one
of the children with his car, they instantly band together and force him to kill himself
by driving into a wall, despite the fact that there was no intent to harm any of them on
the man’s part. (Of course, we, unlike the children, are not privy to his
thoughts. Perhaps an unspoken wish that he had hit them was allowed to cross his
mind….) Conversely, after more acts of violence, an enraged Alan Bernard forces his
way into the children’s presence and threatens them, but they do not kill him,
instead punishing him with a dose of temporary shock and paralysis. Why? Out of fear of
the consequences? Or perhaps out of some distant kind of feeling for Gordon – or even
Anthea? The only thing that is clear from all of this is that the children, like all
children, do not have full command of themselves, however "unemotional" they may
be. The horror that underlies the film is the question of what will happen when their
powers develop to full capacity, and they are in control of them. It is this that
the government must finally attempt to deal with. We learn, in time, that
"events" such as that which occurred in Midwich also took place elsewhere in the
world, simultaneously. One was in northern Australia, where something went wrong, and all
the babies died. Two more occurred in an Eskimo community, and in a remote area of China.
These societies, though not labelled as such outright, are clearly coded
"primitive": the men killed the babies and, in one case, the mothers as well.
Apart from England, the other "civilised" country to be afflicted was Russia.
The Russian children, we hear, developed at a faster rate than those in Midwich, until
they were on the verge of "taking control"; at which point, the government took
action: the children – and, since they could not be warned without the children
knowing telepathically what was to happen, everyone else in the vicinity – were nuked
off the face of the planet…. (This plot point was lent an unwelcome degree of
plausibility by the fact that the week in which I re-watched this film in order to review
it was also the week that the Russian hostage crisis was "resolved".) Only the
Midwich children remain to be dealt with.
Time has bestowed upon Village Of The
Damned some extra layers of resonance. At the time of its production, it seemed like a
late-stage entry in the wave of fifties paranoia films – "They’re here to
take over, and they look just like us!" – with a second dose of social
unease – "And they want our women!" - thrown in for good measure.
Nowadays, however, it is the children as children that are likely to unsettle the
viewer: these little sociopaths, with their indifference to the ties of family and their
disregard for the law, may be just a bit too familiar for comfort. That the film’s
monsters are only children highlights another contemporary social question. While not an
issue, perhaps, when the film was made, in more recent times it has become a common
practice for just about any restrictive government action – censorship, increased
police powers – to be justified on the grounds of "protecting the
children". But what does a government do when the threat to society is posed by
individuals who are themselves children? Who in every word and action, violate the
cherished tenet of childhood "innocence"? There are, of course, a number of
countries in the world that like to think of themselves as "the Good Guys"; and
this brings with it some heavy responsibilities – there are certain things that
"the Good Guys" simply don’t do. (Or at least, so it is in theory; in
practice, I’m not so sure.) How, then, does such a country go about dealing with a
problem like the Midwich children? – a problem that seems only soluble by doing
things that just "aren’t done". Inhuman or not, is it right to shoot the
children – poison them – bomb them? Could it ever be right to kill a
child? (A film that would make up a disturbing double feature with Village Of The
Damned is another of its spawn, Narcisco Ibanez Serrador’s Quien Puedo Matar A
Un Nino?/Who Can Kill A Child?, which deals with such matters in an even more direct
and terrifying way.) If Village Of The Damned was one of the last
"paranoia" films, it was also the predecessor of the wave of "demonic
children" films that became so prevalent during the social upheaval of the sixties
and seventies; and it has a power that many of its followers lack, perhaps because unlike
them it is not merely a family drama, but deals with broader issues such as
government action in times of crisis, how people’s perceptions of themselves can
affect their actions, and where the moral line should be drawn. If the film’s
resolution is, in a sense, a soft option, the hard questions asked by Village Of The
Damned nevertheless remain.
Footnote: Out of
respect to this film, I have kept my inevitable Simpsons reference out of the body of the
review. It’s merely this: if there’s anyone out there who hasn’t seen the
episode entitled Wild Barts Can’t Be Broken, you need to track it down. Its
highlight is an excerpt from a horror movie called The Bloodening, which just
happens to feature blonde-haired kids with glowing eyes and "creepy English
accents". You will never think of shepherd’s pie in the same way again….
Can't get enough of evil killer
children? Click here for
Chad's review of John Carpenter's Village Of The Damned." |
Director: Wolf Rilla