Village of the Damned by Wolf Rilla [1960]

Title: Village of the Damned
Director: Wolf Rilla
Starring: George Sanders, Barbara Shelley, Michael Gwynn
Runtime: 77 minutes
Year: 1960
Source: TCM on cable

Ah, the original Village of the Damned. I remember watching the first part of this when I was about 10 or so, and then my grandma turned it off. Such a shame.

The movie starts opens in the town of Midwich, all the residents seem to of blacked out for three hours. No explaination can be found and life resumes are usual. Then two months later, all the towns women are pregnant. Including those that haven't got banged out in a while, causing alarm.

Once the children are finally ready to be born, they all are on the same night, with numerous similarities. They all are large babies (over 10 pounds, ouch), white hair, strange fingernails, and the most unusal eyes that tend to glow when pissed off. As they age the creep factor just goes up- they all dress the same, grow and mature way faster than usual, super-intelligent, void of any kind of emotion and seem to be able to communicate without speaking or without even being in the same room. The parents and community in a whole are all creeped right the fuck out and decide to send these kids to their own private boarding school fronted by a too kind man who is the pretend father of one of them.

A few locals tend to die unexpectantly, but it isn't until adults witness a man drive his car into a brick wall after almost hitting one of the creepy bastard children.

The movie was shot all in black and white, which just seems to up the creep vibe ten fold. There honestly isn't anythnig to complain about [and I can almost always find a few flaws since I'm an anal dick].

Highly recommended.

j.