Village of the Damned (1960)

Village of the Damned (1960, UK)

In director Wolf Rilla's (and MGM's) scary and sinister B-movie sci-fi/horror film (about an alien takeover), it was loosely adapted from John Wyndham's 1957 sci-fi novel The Midwich Cuckoos.

The taglines asked and warned:

• "What Demonic Force Lurks Behind Those Eyes?"
• "Beware the Stare! That Will Paralyze the Will of the World!"

At the time of its release during the Cold War, the film functioned as an allegory for the Communist Scare of the 1950s, with its paranoia about violent aggressors in the form of children.

[Note: A sequel soon followed, director Anton M. Leader's Children of the Damned (1964, UK), and it was later remade as John Carpenter's Village of the Damned (1995) starring Christopher Reeve. Other films with murderous youth included The Omen (1976) , Who Can Kill a Child? (1976, Sp.), and Children of the Corn (1984).]

• in the film's opening during what was dubbed a "time out," a mysterious force-field, represented by a mist, caused everyone to collapse or fall asleep (or go unconscious) in the middle of the day (at 10 minutes before 11 am) in the rural British village of Midwich; a 5-mile impenetrable bubble was established around the area that was affected during an investigation; there appeared to be a distinct boundary line that surrounded the infected area; local authorities in the area took precautionary measures to seal off the village, but then after about four hours, everyone awakened
• within a month or two, the townsfolk discovered that every woman of child-bearing age in the town had become pregnant at exactly the same time (during the event), including a virgin named Milly Hughes (Pamela Buck), unwed young teenaged girls and even married women whose husbands had been absent for months; husband James Pawle (Thomas Heathcote) who had been at sea for a full year, was upset upon his return to learn that his wife Janet Pawle (Charlotte Mitchell) was pregnant; there were many accusations of infidelity and premarital sex, although the conceptions were all virginal - and all at exactly the same time
• the phenomenon appeared to be a mass, extraterrestrial insemination event (possibly due to an interstellar energy beam), using all the females (of child-bearing age) as incubators - with unpredictable consequences; it was discovered through follow-up studies that the same phenomena of simultaneous insemination and births occurred in other places around the world (Australia, Greenland, Mongolia, and the Soviet Union), although there were differing circumstances
• after five months, the village's Dr. Willers (Laurence Naismith) noted that the fetus development of the pregnancies was accelerated and the unborn babies were actually in their 7th month; at the time of their simultaneous births, all the babies were about 10 lbs. in weight
• a spawned group of 12 hyper-intelligent, glowing-eyed kids (a mutant alien race?) with raised foreheads were born; after four months, the babies had advanced physical development approximately equating to a year and a half
• in the Zellaby nursery with her innocent-looking toddler son David, Anthea Zellaby (Barbara Shelley) was scalded when it was thought that David had telepathically willed her to burn her hand (by plunging it into boiling water) when she mistakenly gave him hot milk
• as the children grew older, they turned out to behave strangely - they were telepathic, blonde-haired, unemotional, highly intelligent and precocious, group-minded, and naturally bonded to each other ("One mind to the power of twelve"); David's father, resident scientist Professor Gordon Zellaby (George Sanders), realized that the children could easily solve a complex puzzle-box challenge
• the leader of the deadly-staring, mind-controlling and telepathic, mind-reading robotic drone-children - with penetrating eyes - turned out to be his son:
  • David Zellaby (Martin Stephens)
• Professor Zellaby volunteered to teach the children under one roof in the village's brick schoolhouse (and also to perform research on them); he noticed that the children had strong powers of shared consciousness and communal thinking, and could often read his thoughts
• there were odd instances in which residents of the town died or were harmed under mysterious circumstances from the destructive forces generated by the seemingly-innocent children and their glowing eyes; in one instance after a driver nearly killed one of the 12 children, the driver entered into a suicidal trance and drove into a wall with his vehicle and killed himself
• during an inquest, Mrs. Zellaby's memory of the accident was confusing and unclear; seeking revenge, the brother of the deceased driver planned to ambush the children with his shotgun, but then was compelled to pull his shotgun trigger and blow his own head off

• strange telepathic son David Zellaby threatened Gordon's brother-in-law Alan Bernard (Michael Gwynn): "There's nothing you can do to stop us. You have to be taught to leave us alone. Leave us alone!"; the man's eyes bulged out of their sockets before he was released from David's control
• as the film drew to its end, David confronted his father, announcing how the group of children would be leaving the village soon, to disperse and travel throughout the country to set up new colonies. Professor Zellaby realized he had to curtail the destructive powers of the special children, who were determined to survive and take over the village, and then spread out. He began to construct a bomb to destroy the children, but needed to avoid being detected by keeping his mind blank; he practiced concentrating on a brick wall as a non-penetrable mental barrier.
• then, Professor Zellaby faced-off against David, his own son, in the classroom of the brick schoolhouse; he struggled to maintain the image of the brick wall in his mind, to prevent the children from getting into his thoughts; the deadly-staring children approached the desk where he had set his briefcase (with a bomb, triggered and timed to detonate at 8:30 and kill all of them, including himself)
• David was puzzled but then revealed that he had figured out his father's deadly plan:
  • "You're not thinking of atomic energy - you're thinking of a brick wall!"

• with a sweaty brow, the self-sacrificing Professor struggled to concentrate and maintain his single-minded thought - the image of the brick wall in his mind, to prevent the children from learning that he was blocking his thoughts about destroying them:
  • (voice-over) "A brick wall... a brick wall... I must think of a brick wall... a brick wall... I must think of a brick wall... a brick wall... brick wall... I must think of a brick wall... It's almost half past eight... brick wall... only a few seconds more... brick wall... brick wall... brick wall... nearly over... a brick wall..."
• a view of the brick wall was superimposed over the Professor's face as his will was perceptably weakened, the childrens' eyes glowed, and the brick wall began to slowly crumble (revealing the bomb behind it), but the alien children were unable to prevent destruction

• the bomb exploded at exactly eight-thirty, killing all of the children and the Professor; after the bomb detonated, pairs of eyes drifted off into the sky, superimposed over the flames and smoke; the disembodied eyes hinted that they had survived the explosion