Village Of The Damned (Wolf Rilla, 1960) [RePoPo]

******************************************************************************* Village of the Damned (Wolf Rilla, 1960) ******************************************************************************* ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Technical Information ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Type..................: Movie Container file........: MKV Video Format..........: AVC (High Profile Level 5.1) Total Bitrate.........: 2162 Kbps Audio format..........: AC3 (Untouched) Audio Languages.......: English 1.0 Subtitles Ripped......: English, Spanish Subtitles in Subpack..: English, Spanish, French Resolution............: 704x384 Aspect Ratio..........: 1.85:1 (aprox) Original Aspect Ratio.: 1.85:1 Bits/(Pixel*Frame)....: 0.303 Color.................: B&W FPS...................: 23.976 Source................: NTSC DVD Duration..............: 01:17:16 Genre.................: Science-Fiction IMDb Rating...........: 7.4 Movie Information.....: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0054443/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Release Notes ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Plot Synopsis by Hal Erickson Something is seriously amiss in the tiny British village of Midwich. At 11 a.m. one morning, every village resident suddenly falls asleep -- and then, just as suddenly, everyone wakes up, completely unaffected by the phenomenon. Well, not completely: virtually every woman of childbearing years has become pregnant. All the babies are born on the same night, at precisely the same moment. All look the same, weigh the same, and even have the same curious cross-hatched hair and underdeveloped fingernails. Four years later, the children have all prematurely reached the age of nine or so -- and all behave in a weird, conspiratorial manner, comporting themselves more like adults than kids. Resident scientist George Sanders, one of the fathers, surmises that the bizarre manner of the children -- from their zombie-like movements to their cold, staring eyes -- is the result of radioactivity, possibly extraterrestrial in nature. One thing is certain: the children possess powers far beyond those of ordinary mortals. And they must be stopped. One of the most influential science fiction films of the 1960s, Village of the Damned was based on the equally eerie John Wyndham novel The Midwich Cuckoos. The more explicit 1995 remake was widely panned in comparison. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- CAST George Sanders - Gordon Zellaby Barbara Shelley - Anthea Zellaby Michael Gwynn - Maj. Alan Bernard Martin Stephens - David Zellaby Laurence Naismith - Dr. Willers John Phillips - Gen. Leighton Richard Vernon - Sir Edgar Hargreaves Rick Warner - Mr. Harrington Jenny Laird - Mrs. Harrington Thomas Heathcote - James Pawle Charlotte Mitchell - Janet Pawle Rosamond Greenwood - Miss Ogle Susan Richards - Mrs. Plumpton Bernard Archard - Vicar Peter Vaughan - Police Constable Gobbey Alexander Archdale - Coroner Diane Aubrey - W.R.A.C. Secretary Tom Bowman - Pilot John Bush - The Village Children Michael C. Goetz John Kelly - The Children Robert Marks - The Village Children Paul Norman - The Village Children Gerald Paris - Sapper Keith Pyott - Dr. Carlisle Sheila Robbins - Nurse Brian Smith - The Village Children John Stuart - Prof. Smith Peter Taylor - The Children CREW Wolf Rilla - Director / Screenwriter Ronald Kinnoch - Producer George Barclay - Screenwriter Stirling Silliphant - Screenwriter John Wyndham - Book Author Geoffrey Faithfull - Cinematographer Ron Goodwin - Composer (Music Score) Gordon Hales - Editor Ivan King - Art Director Eric Aylott - Makeup Tom Howard - Special Effects -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SOME REVIEWS Jake Euker (Filmcritic.com) The creepiest moment in the recent horror film Godsend � maybe the only creepy moment � occurs when the boy around whom the action is centered informs his father, in a steady, vaguely threatening voice, that he doesn�t think he likes him so much anymore. It�s scary; the boy is in a sudden position of authority over his dad. The grown-ups in the audience don�t like the way it sounds. It�s a good thing, then, that these same grown-ups weren�t around in the British village of Midwich circa 1950. In that sleepy hamlet the entire population suffers from a brief blackout one day; a few months later, all the Midwich women of child-bearing age find that they were expecting, and the children, when they come along, are not exactly like the other boys and girls. They are, in fact, exactly like one another: blonde, rather too intelligent for our comfort, and possessed of a particularly icy stare. To say that they are aloof is an understatement. And, perhaps most tellingly, they have a hive mentality: They keep only one another�s company, they communicate wordlessly, and when one of these children learns a fact, the others automatically learn it too. Such is the premise of the 1960 horror classic Village of the Damned, which was the subject of a flaccid remake in 1995, and which is now available on DVD together with its sequel Children of the Damned (1963) along with a commentary track. Village of the Damned is a compendium of horror film virtues: It runs a tight 78 minutes, it�s shot in a wintry black and white, its storytelling is economical, and it frightens rather than startles. Any hack filmmaker can throw a barking dog into the frame and jolt an unsuspecting audience. But in Village of the Damned director Wolf Rilla builds dread of these strange children through insinuation and mood, and the audience gets the real thing: fear. Best of all, Village of the Damned demonstrates a surefire horror principle that�s as simple and effective as it is underused: it never explains its central enigma away. Where most thrillers fall off the screen with dumbass, climactic justifications and explanations that strip them of their mystery (�It turned out to be a spider!� �Voodoo people did it!� �Pammy got a virus that made her want to eat brains!�), Village of the Damned has the class and the savvy to let what went wrong in Midwich ride. The primary action of the film centers on the children at school age, as they react to the mounting fear and hostility they elicit from the grown-ups of the village. There�s the matter of the children�s utter coldness, their alarming intelligence, a few unexplained deaths among their peers at school. But it�s only when an unlucky resident narrowly misses one of the children in his car that we see what these kids can really do � what they can do when they put their mind to it, that is, and they only have one among them. Think of the film as the British uncle to Brian de Palma�s The Fury and you�ll begin to see what we mean. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mel Valentin (efilmcritic.com) Released in 1960 (and directed by Wolf Rilla), "Village of the Damned," the first adaptation of John Wyndham�s speculative fiction novel, "The Midwich Cuckoos" (Wyndham preferred to describe his novels as �logical fantasies�), is the rare science-fiction/horror film that, despite minimal special effects (or action scenes), remains highly watchable more than four decades after its release. In contrast, the 1995 remake directed by genre specialist John Carpenter has little to recommend it, besides passable special effects and gore. Due to a modest budget and the more cerebral source material (typical of British science fiction), "Village of the Damned" depends on character, plot, conflict, and performance for its entertainment value. Casual science-fiction fans, however, may find "Village of the Damned�s" casual, deliberate pace and unanswered questions difficult to overlook. In Village of the Damned, a quaint, rural village in England, Midwich, falls prey to a mysterious, odorless, invisible gas that sends all of the village�s inhabitants into prolonged, dreamless sleep. During the blackout (also called a �timeout� or �dayout�), all the women of childbearing age become pregnant. For some, like the protagonist Gordon Zellaby (George Sanders) and his wife, Anthea (Barbara Shelley), the news of her pregnancy brings happiness (he�s considerably older than she is, and her pregnancy seems to catch them by surprise). For others in the village, the news of pregnancy has an opposite effect, raising the specter of infidelity or premarital intercourse (and, therefore, social ostracism). The men, of course, take to giving their wives and daughters glowering looks and wasting precious hours, silently, at the local pub. The pregnancies are far from �normal.� The fetuses grow at an accelerated rate, the children are born almost simultaneously, and when born, share certain physical characteristics, including blond hair and, when perplexed, glowing eyes. Once out of the womb, the children continue to grow quickly, all the while exhibiting vast intellectual gifts (and later, mental telepathy and mind control) minus emotional development. Their collective behavior indicates, as one character puts it, a �mass mind� (i.e., a hive mind which places communal interests and survival over individual self-interest). Even then, the children seem to speak through David (Martin Stephens), Gordon�s ostensible �son.� Not surprisingly, even as the children�s biological mothers display maternal feelings toward their alien offspring, the other villagers react with fear, dread, anger, and a rising hysteria. Not everyone, however, reacts negatively toward the children. Gordon, a college professor, takes a detached, scientific interest in the children and their rapid development (despite obvious doubts about David�s parentage). Gordon is the perfect example of the Enlightenment, placing his faith in material progress and scientific rationalism, thus creating a second layer or level of conflict, between scientific inquiry and self- or group-preservation (as advocated by the military and the Home Office). Given the time period, there�s little doubt about the children�s malevolent intentions, their plans for taking over their village (and later, the world), nor in Gordon�s eventual response to the threat posed by the children (hint, a brick wall is involved). Besides the premise, which translates subconscious fears about communism and its anti-individualist ethos into science-fiction metaphor (thus making Village of the Damned an important film from a cultural and historical perspective) or which hints uncomfortably at Hitler's (mythic) super-race, Village of the Damned succeeds due to a compelling storyline, sympathetic characters, and an unsettling dread intimately tied to children-as-villains. Children are usually perceived (and presented) as untainted innocents. Here, the alien children have infiltrated and subverted the nuclear family, making their whims and desires paramount (their "parents" and human siblings are powerless to contradict or oppose them). The discomfort elicited by the children can, in part, be traced to the directions given the child actors by director Wolf Rilla. Rilla instructed his young actors to remain still when on screen. It�s a subtle, almost imperceptible change in expected behavior that viewers are likely to perceive on a subconscious level. Of course, the one major special effect, the alien children�s glowing eyes is especially noteworthy, as is the central performance by Martin Stephens (equally preternatural and creepy in "The Innocents") as the leader/spokesman for the alien children. Stephens is perfectly cast as the calculating, forceful leader (due, in large part, to his line deliveries). As Gordon Zellaby, George Sanders gives an against-the-grain, understated, controlled performance, befitting a character guided more by intellect than emotion. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PLEASE NOTICE ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Check you have installed the right codecs, as listed in this .nfo file, before trying to play it. 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 Alia_Erenel (2008-11-09)

THANK YOU !

spen007 (2009-03-27)

Hello,
Have downloaded a number of your films and all are of excellent quality. Thank you!!
1. Village of the Damned soundtrack. Out-of-sync?? Maybe i´m doing something wrong?? Can you assist??
2. I remember there being a sequel to this film. Do you have this sequel hidden away in some treasure chest??
Thanks for for your time and consideration!!!
Tchau from Brazil,
Spencer

tahadata (2012-12-26)

Thanks

cuteycindyhoney (2013-02-17)

Thanks! I'm reading the John Wyndham novel now. I'll watch the movie as soon as I finish it.

Mortenero (2014-12-01)

Excellent quality, thanks
Sound is in synch :)
I use VLC media player.
Sequel to this film is "Children of the Damned" (1964)