Review of Village of the Damned (1995) by Charles C — 12 May 2012

This remake of a 1960's classic is not classic Carpenter. It's a mostly lifeless retelling with no scares, mediocre acting and suprisingly few interesting Carpenter touches.

I like the opening scene. In a localized area around the city of Midwich, all of the people and animals fall unconcious. It's really effective and while nothing stands out about the way it happens, it is disturbing to see everyone go down in such a fashion. And frankly, that is where the movie gets less interesting for me. The problem is that it is far too early for that to happen.

Carpenter doesn't seem to do much to try and scare us. This is pretty much played as sci-fi. There are a few grisly deaths. And no, I don't mean the one where a man is hyptnotized into jumping his pickup into a propane tank. Man, did that look stupid. One of the main characters dies very early in the runtime, and one guy falls unconcious but unfortunately face first onto a barbeque grill. In another scene, a woman is forced into putting her arm into a pot of boiling water. All of these things are pretty unique, but not scary. And it's too bad if that was the intent.

The evil children in the movie turn out to be a formidable problem for Midwich, but Christopher Reeve flies to the rescue, not as Superman, but as a doctor. He manages to find a way to counter the hyptnotic powers of the youth, but not before they have really run up the body count and have progressed to becoming a problem for the entire state government.

Then there are the children. They walk or sit around for the entire movie, not exactly threatening but they've got a menacing flavor to them. The children actors are really the problem here, along with a completely off performance by Kirstie Alley. Talk about your square peg in a round hole. She is totally off-putting as Dr. Susan Verner. She arrogant, cocky and supposedly smart, but she doesn't sell a single one of those attributes.

The whole movie really lacks, actually. It doesn't feel like a Carpenter movie. Does it look too polished? Is it because the children are so robotic? You know, that's probably the root of the problem. There are too many opportunites to polish off the little hellions that aren't capitalized on.