Written by David Hammilstein (based on the novel by John Wyndham) Directed by John Carpenter Starring Christopher Reeve Kirstie Alley Linda Koslowski Lindsey Haun Thomas Dekker |
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The Village of the Damned (1995)As a college student, I have often-well, okay, more than often-thrown together a paper or a project at the eleventh hour, leaving it with a pretty obvious aura of incompleteness, of missing quality. Unfortunately, it seems that John Carpenter had approached his remake of The Village of the Damned in very much the same way I had written many a paper. It just seems like he threw a bunch of stuff together at the last minute, popped open a beer or an Arbor Mist, and said, "Well, that does it!"
The film's sloppiness comes to full light when compared to, admittedly one of my favorite horror movies of all time, In The Mouth of Madness, which was made by Carpenter the exact same year as this. For all its flaws, In The Mouth of Madness was a tightly scripted, ambitious movie that tried to recapture the essence of H.P Lovecraft for a contemporary audience.
Given that incredible feat (especially with H.P Lovecraft being notorious for his viewpoints which let's just say wouldn't set so well with a reader or an audience today), it is surprising that this update of Village of the Damned doesn't go nearly as well, if we put aside the strong possibility that this was a "paycheck" movie for Carpenter, while In The Mouth of Madness was an "effort." At any rate, the essential set-up of the original is here: a small, isolated town suddenly finds its inhabitants becoming suddenly unconscious for a long amount of time in a bizarre, unexplainable event that baffles even the military. AFter some time, all women capable of childbirth in the town, even those who never had sex before in their lives, find themselves pregnant. Of course, although no birth defects are detected,there is something different about these children, and as they grow the adults in the town of Midwich discover that not only that they are highly intelligent and emotionally detached, but also possess terrifyingly potent telepathic abilities that grow stronger with age...
It's around this point that the similarity to the original ends. While the original had the standard British hero, a staunch intellectual from the upper classes named George, stand against the children, here George is split into two characters: Dr. Chaffee and Dr. Verner. Of course, because that's the way these things go, Dr. Chaffee, an average small town doctor, is more concerned with trying to "moralize" the kids, even as they kill people left and right, while Dr. Verner, a positive sp00k, wants to use them for her obviously Nefarious Ends.
Chaffee is played by Christopher Reeve, who does a reasonable job, but the character is doomed from the start. There ought to be a great deal of moral conflict in his character, especially since his wife is murdered by one of them and his daughter Mara becomes the ringleader. Yet through out the movie takes a very unambigious approach, with Mara as clearly EEE-vil and David, who starts to develop "emotions," as the "Good One Who Must Be Spared!" Likewise all of Chaffee's actions are pretty predictable and justified, even up until the film's climax, which should be a stunning moment that leaves the viewer pondering the film's themes and the morality of the so-called "hero." Instead, we simply wind up with a scene that generates little suspence and gives even less room to ponder the consequences of the ending sequences.
Ah, and what can be said of Dr. Verner, portrayed by Kirstie Alley of all people...? Haunted by the memories of Diane from "Cheers" aside, Alley did a respectable job but, sadly, like Reeve, was bogged down by bad writing. What do you expect from a character when she dresses in black and smokes enough cigarrettes to beat X-Files' CSM to the Camel's preferred customer coupon. To be fair, besides doing the usual sp00k thing, Kirstie Alley doesn't really do anything all that terribly EEE-vil, although her character does nothing to complicate the film's morality toward science; the opposite, in fact.
Now then, there's a third and important character in the film, and that's the town of Midwich itself. Unfortunately, it is the most badly depicted. From the gag-inducing and forced scene at the barbeque to the town's inconsistent size, you never get even a feeling that this could be a real community. The town's other denizens do not help the illusion either. For instance, the town preacher (played by Mark Hamill!) goes from a sane, average preacher to wanting to kill the kids overnight. Why? We never find out. The kid's interactions with their community are not given enough attention, nor how they are raised by their reluctant parents. The film's too concerned with showing the creepy and gorey things the kids can do with their powers than how a strange and interesting situation envisioned by the movie would actually play out.
Even though it was helmed by an acclaimed master of cinematic horror, Village of the Damned is the worst kind of remake: it makes superficial changes to the setting and the material, while neglecting the issues raised by the original to the point of abuse. Not even having the inherently cool concept of small killer children can make up for that kind of thing...
Now, go read Liz's review of the original and find out if they did any better. After that, view our great debate
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