#30 - Village of the Damned

MOVIE:  Village of the Damned (1995)

PLOT:  Midwich is a sleepy little town along the coast.  Very sleepy.  So sleepy, in fact, that pretty much the entire town passes out one day, all at once, from exactly 10 am to exactly 4 pm.  6 hours of absolute unconsciousness, during which time, nobody really knows what happened...  until the local doctor notices the number of pregnancies is way up.  Up by 12, in fact.  Exactly 12.  All dating to the day when the whole town was put to sleep by unknown means...

OVERALL ENJOYMENT:  I really liked this movie.  Always a good watch.

GOOD POINTS:  Tons of famous actors.  Big budget production, doubtless spent on the actors involved instead of explosive special effects.  Not that there weren't any!

BAD POINTS:  Not enough Michael Pare!  He may not be the world's greatest actor but he always brings a lot of character to his roles.  No nudity, again, despite some fairly attractive actresses in this movie.  Oh well.

SPOILERS:  Having seen the movie a few times, I am beginning to wonder if the development of emotions wasn't just a mechanism to help them survive...  Hmmm.  Sequel, anyone?

IMPRESSIONS:  Some of the really best horror films are films where you really have no idea what the hell is going on, like the first time i saw this movie.  There's some odd happenings, maybe some deaths, and an urgent desire to figure out what's going on, but just like the characters on the screen, you don't have enough evidence to piece it together yet.  This makes you identify with them, because they are just as confused as you are about what's happening.  And then what's going on starts to become clearer, and frankly, you'd rather you were still in the dark about it, because it's just too horrible to think about.

Village of the Damned is one of those films.  It starts out pretty normal.  Small town life. There's some sort of pumpkin festival being held by the school, which makes me think it's a halloweeny type of movie.  All the characters are going about their daily tasks, some doing their jobs, some helping to prepare for the activities at the festival, when all of a sudden, everyone just passes out.  There are some deaths involved, because when you're driving along and then you're asleep at the wheel, there's going to be a problem pretty damn soon.  The authorities become involved, but can't get in to check out the town because everyone who goes within a certain distance of the town zonks out just like everyone in it.  Animals, birds, everything, just out like a light.  And then just as suddenly, they all wake up again.  And if that wasn't bad or creepy enough, things just start to go downhill from there.

Definitely worth multiple watches.  Seen it many times.  Netflix was removing it from their queue on Halloween, so at this point I don't know where you'd watch it, but that's why i decided to view it tonight.  It's got christopher reeve before his accident but after his superman days, and it's got kirstie alley back when she was still hot and a major actress.  Lots of other major stars too, Mark hamill, linda kozlowski, michael pare i already mentioned, oh, and George "Buck" Flower!  Let me just take an aside here to say...  If you've got a name like George Flower, i can see why you'd take the nickname "Buck."  He must have really got picked on at school when he was a kid.  Great actor though.  Village of the Damned was also directed by John Carpenter, who...  also directs our bonus movie tonight!  :-o  TADAA!!!!

BONUS REVIEW:  The Fog (1980)  Still avaialble on netflix.  The Fog was an excellent little gem by john carpenter a few years after he did "Halloween."  Lots of suspense, many tense moments.  You youngins may not understand suspense and tense moments, you just like your blood and gore.  Well, there wasn't much of that in this movie.  Just plain old creepy terror.  Having seen the fog many times since I was a kid, it still creeps me out to this day.  John Carpenter re-used jamie lee Curtis from halloween, cast Tom Atkins in the hero role (who would later be tapped to do halloween 3, which had nothing to do with john carpenter or Michael myers), and HEY, George "Buck' Flower also makes an appearance in this movie!  lol  That guy sure gets around.  I swear you'd be hard-pressed to find a horror or western he DIDN'T have a part in in the 70's, 80's or 90's.  Also, this was one of only two movies where Janet Leigh (of Psycho fame) co-starred with her daughter, jamie Lee curtis.  The other was halloween H20.  Also, if you look carefully, janet leigh's assistant is played by nancy Loomis, who played Jamie Lee Curtis friend in halloween.  I am always amazed by how often these people tended to work together back then.  It must have been like getting together with old friends every few months to work on another project.  Anyway, you guys must know the plot by now!  Antonio bay turns 100 years old and ends up paying for it's founding in blood!  Yea, pretty simple stuff, but so much fun to watch.  I even love just listening to the actors talk in this film.  It's like every line of dialogue was trimmed and practiced until every single syllable is meted out for maximum suspense.  Just hearing the story about nick's dad finding the gold coin on the old schooner ship while he's talking to jamie lee curtis was freaking me out.  I may have peed myself just a little.  Scenery is awesome in this movie, too.  During the day, Adrienne barbeau's ride to the lighthouse where she works, totally beautiful to watch.  The views were exceptional.  And i'm not even talking about the actress herself, who was much younger in those days and also a babe!  Always fun to watch that movie, i try to hit it every year around this time.

OTHER NEWS:  Well, I went to bed last night figuring i'd lose power due to some light winds, and woke up this morning to almost sunshine.  Sandy the "superstorm" managed to fizzle itself out in record time.  Sure, I know some places got hit bad, virginia is still dealing with heavy snows and new york city is still half under water, but I knew it wasn't going to get bad here.  We're on the slow side of the storm.  Nothing happened here.  We didn't even lose power, which is unusual for us.  We tend to lose power during a light thunderstorm.  lol  Now all it needs to do is dry out a little and we'll still have candy for trick or treaters tomorrow night!  :-D  Hopefully not too many trick or treaters.  I get anything the kids don't take.  lol

And it is after midnight, so it's now officially All Hallow's Eve!  YAY!  Happy Halloween everybody!  :-D  Don't eat too much candy!  Save some for me!  lol