Village of the Damned (1995)

Village of the Damned (1995)

2/10

Starring

Christopher Reeve

Kirstie Alley

Linda Kozlowski

Mark Hamill

Directed by John Carpenter

What a bad remake. Too many changes from the original and way too much emotional baggage to make the movie worth the 98 minutes of intended creepiness that the 1960 version squeezed into just 77 minutes.

This was the last movie Christopher Reeve did before the tragic horseback accident that left him paralyzed from the neck down. Christopher’s performance wasn’t his best, but the storyline itself didn’t help matters.

In the 1960 version, the movie starts with the eerie sight of humans dropping like flies. In this remake, the writers and popular horror/thriller director John Carpenter decided to give the characters what he felt was missing in the 1960 classic: story depth.

Story depth is great and all, but some movies can get by without it—and in that area, director Wolf Rilla, who did the 1960 version, outshone John Carpenter. Another difference is the change in the lead roles. In the 1960 version, the lead was the Professor, with the Doctor and the Professor’s brother-in-law as supporting actors.

In fact, this remake removed all the creepiness of the 1960 version and added unnecessary emotions, which aren’t needed to make a good horror movie.

Here, David isn’t a complete weirdo like the other children, and only 10 women are mysteriously pregnant, unlike the original, where every woman of childbearing age was affected.

With all these changes and more, the 1995 version lacks the fun and horror that made the original so memorable.

The plot is similar to the original but with a lot of changes, some of which I’ve already mentioned. The movie is set in America, unlike the original, which is set in England, but the town name, Midwich, remains the same. One day, by 10:00 a.m., the people of Midwich collapse and later wake up to discover that 10 women in the town are pregnant.

Only nine of the women deliver safely, and the children are born with strange hair and a weird gaze. The children pair up, except for David, whose partner dies. David is different from the others—he’s not emotionless like the rest.

The children grow rapidly, possess psychic abilities, and are interconnected. What one knows, the others know too, and they can read minds.

Soon, the whole town turns against the children and wants to kill them, but the children also have an offensive ability: the power to control people.

I wish the remake had stayed closer to the original—it would have been awesome. Instead, the movie suffers from bad CGI and crappy makeup for the children.