Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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32 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Cuckoos in the nest., 9 Sep 2006
One afternoon in the English village of Midwich everyone falls asleep.When they awaken some hours later it seems as if everything is normal,but soon all the women and girls of childbearing age,even those claiming to be virgins, are found to be pregnant.When they give birth the children are all strangely alike with flaxen hair and golden eyes.Soon they begin to exert a sinister control over the other villagers.
Along with The Day The Earth Caught Fire,this is a true classic of British sci-fi.A great cast,led by George Sanders and Barbara Shelley as Prof. Gordon Zellaby and his wife,Anthea,play it straight down the line and manage to overcome the casting of the,rather too obviously alien,children.As with all of John Wyndham's work, and this is taken from the novel The Midwich Cuckoos,several interesting and provocative ideas are explored,all of them still relevant today.Foremost among them,the question of how societies should react "aliens" in their midst,especially ones who are more intellectualy advanced.After all,the children are basically Homo Sapiens who find themselves living amongst Neanderthals and must struggle to survive in an atmosphere of unified hostility.
The cosy English setting and black and white photography make the film seem old fashioned in many ways,but also add to the reality and unsettling atmosphere in a way that John Carpenter's abysmal remake singularly fails to do.In a way that was possible back in 1960,but is not now,there is a naivety that permits the use of a small cast.Sanders for example plays a polymath whose expertise is accepted on just about anything scientific, and Michael Gwynn as Zellaby's army Major brother-in-law has a direct line to the top men in the War Office.As for the children's strange powers,the only special effects are a bit of business with their eyes.But all of this only improves the film by making the viewer concentrate on plot and character.
George Sanders is on top form as is Barbara Shelley and the only thing that lets the film down is the slightly pedestrian direction by Wolf Rilla.
Children Of The Damned is an altogether different matter.A poor follow up that trys to blend '60's kitchen sink drama with a new generation of alien children.It fails to advance any of the ideas from the original film and produces few new ideas of its own.It's nice to see Alan Badel and Ian Hendry in starring roles,but this is not a highpoint of either of their careers.Unlike Village Of The Damned,which draws the viewer in virtually from the opening scene,Children Of The Damned is tedious and unoriginal and soon becomes boring.
Nevertheless,this dvd is well worth buying just for Village Of The Damned,which is certainly the best film adaptation of a John Wyndham novel,primarily because it sticks to its English roots and doesn't try and Americanise it for an international audience.
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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A great classic, 13 Sep 2007
I think this is one of those films which works better in black and white. The children with their blond hair are all the more sinister.
Beginning with cosy very English scenes of sheep grazing and George Sanders standing by a fireside, the mood very quickly changes.
The initial joy felt by one of the mothers, played very well by Barbara Shelley, soon turns to fear as she wonders just what sort of baby she has given birth to, though she still retains the love of a mother for a child. The suspence builds as it becomes obvious what a threat the children are becoming. It slows just a little in the middle but has a satisfying and tense ending.
I saw this many years ago and was so pleased to be able to get it on DVD. The second film is disappointing.
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11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
"You are thinking of a brick wall. You are thinking of a brick wall..", 5 Dec 2006
Despite having a name that sounds like a German-Japanese dinosaur movie and a drastically reduced budget after MGM got nervous over the possible reaction from the Catholic Legion of Decency, Wolf Rilla managed to deliver a genuine low-budget classic that makes light of its limitations in Village of the Damned. Surprisingly faithful to the source (The Midwich Cuckoos) despite the many changes, it's another variation on novelist's John Wyndham's big theme, the battle for supremacy between two species - in this case the human race and the intellectually superior children spawned after a mysterious alien intervention that sees a small village rendered unconscious in a memorably staged sequence that combines the mundane with the inexplicable. Rather than exploiting the premise and the dangerous telekinetic abilities of the children for shock effects (although they do demonstrate them in a couple of memorable sequences), for the most part the film is as much concerned with the twin dilemmas of whether the children are a potential boon or a threat to the human race and of finding a way to defeat or destroy an enemy that not only knows what you're thinking but which is still a part of your own family. With an excellent screenplay, tightly constructed and imaginatively directed with a great ending - "You are thinking of a brick wall. You are thinking of a brick wall.." - it holds up remarkably well nearly a half century on.
Children of the Damned is morally and politically more ambitious still, exploring the notion that humans are perhaps far worse than the cuckoos in their midst. Unfortunately it's also very dull, good performances from Alfred Burke and Ian Hendry notwithstanding. There's no real involvement or forward momentum, and it exists in a vacuum - the events in the first film are never even acknowledged. But the saving grace of the Region 1 DVD at least is screenwriter John Briley's audio commentary (neither commentary is included on this PAL issue), dealing with the themes of the movie as well as taking detailed diversions into the effect of the blacklist on Hollywood, the exile of US talent to Britain and the artistic and political freedom that MGM UK's sheep farming activities gave them! (There's also a brief harbinger of things to come with a photo of Gandhi overlooking Indian politicians debating killing the children in the film: Briley would go on to write Attenborough's biopic.)
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