Day 29: Village of the Damned
There were a couple old horror films that my dad had described to me as a child, such as The Bad Seed and Scanners, and one of them was "about a group of these creepy, possessed kids."
A film that certainly has a place in pop culture, Village of the Damned is a wonderfully demented take on virgin birth. Two months after a bizarre event where the entire village of Midwich collectively passes out, the women of the town all become mysteriously pregnant. The resulting children are advanced beyond their years, are all blonde, and all have an unsettlingly polite way of speaking. Things only get worse from there.
While the film is small in terms of budget and length, it has big ideas and memorable, if not disturbing images and themes.
The performances, particularly from the children, are truly great, though the adults hold their own as well (Barbara Shelley in the court scene and George Sanders in the final scene come to mind).
The camera is moving a lot, which is strange for a lower budget movie like this, but it makes the film a lot more dynamic and interesting to watch.
A surprisingly twisted film for its time, it still holds up today on the creep factor.
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