Village of the Damned (1960)

Things I adore about this movie:

1. They don't ever insult the audience's intelligence by trying to make whether or not the children are normal a mystery. Even before they're born, it's obvious, to the audience AND the characters, that these are freaky space children. It trades a lot of boring stock "I know it sounds far-fetched but I'M TELLING THE TRUTH, THEY'RE EVIL!!" moments that these films tend to have for more interesting moral debates that their existence brings up.

2. Connected to number one, is that they never explain the origin of the children. It's assumed that they're alien, but like the explanation given in Night of the Living Dead, this is just a theory and not a complete one. I think modern movies too often have a case of Explain-Everything-and-Every-Motivation-itus, when it's not really important to the film. Hence the big "twist" fad inspired by Shyamalan.

3. Though the violence is never explicit (it's from 1960 after all), they don't spare the nastiness. There's something particularly chilling about the children making people kill themselves, rather than "exploding their minds" with some kind of psychic ray or something. A villager even sets himself on fire. Harsh.

4. A BRICK WALL! This is more appreciation of camp than actual film quality, but the conclusion is so stupid and silly that I actually enjoy it quite a bit. His plan is to think of something else until his bomb goes off. Kind of obvious, but the setting up of A BRICK WALL throughout the film changes it from just bad to hilarious. Also, I think "A BRICK WALL" is one of those phrases that just sounds funny when repeated over and over again.

"Brick wall...brick wall...brick wall...brick wall..."
"You're thinking of...A BRICK WALL!"
*Boom, children dead.*

It's not really a "scary" film because, even though I applaud it's unambiguity towards the nature of the children, you never once really feel that the village stands a chance, so there's not a lot of tension. And the "psychic eyes" effect is dated. Where Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a sci-fi/horror that operates on tension (tipping towards the horror aspect of things), this is a sci-fi/horror that operates on ideas (tipping it towards the sci-fi aspect of things), so it's not really a "horror" in many senses of the word.

But there is something inherently creepy about how utterly calm (and Aryan) every child is, and how detached they are from everyone around them, including their parents. This detachment is taken a step further by having all their voices dubbed (I believe), which was distracting at first but ended up being pretty effective. I like that the film portrays them as detached rather than evil. Cuz even though they aren't going to "scare" you, in any sense, it helps keep the scenes where they force people to kill themselves shocking, because there's no camp to them at all.

All in all, it's an effective sci-fi movie that raises interesting questions about power and identity (there's something to completely independent children being able to manipulate adults minds instead of the other way around).

And, of course, A BRICK WALL!

I don't like it because it's the most obvious answer and it takes him most of the film to figure it out. It only took Peter Venkman 5 seconds to realise that, if one can read your mind and use it against you, you gotta clear your mind.

He does struggle with his feelings towards the children, so I'm sure that factors into why it wasn't immediately considered, but in the end, why a brick wall? Why not a steel wall? Or a puppy, for that matter? All he has to do is distract them long enough for the bomb to go off, the "brick wall" method just seems excessively silly and literal for a movie that, for the most part, steers away from the silly and the literal. It doesn't fit the rest of the film up to that point.

I was thinking that the Army should have planted a bomb in the doctor's bag without him knowing as a possible ending. That'd be suitably bleak, and wouldn't require me to giggle like a mad man.