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Village of the Damned (1960) More at IMDbPro »

Village of the Damned (1960) (vhs):

Amazon.com video review: This moody little sci-fi classic has it all over the competition when it comes to possessed tykes with telekinetic powers. Midwich's mysteriously hatched brood bores into the subconscious both with their eyes and with their creepy Hitler Youth-like presence. Based on John Wyndham's 1957 novel The Midwich Cuckoos, and starring George Sanders as the most skeptical of the "miracle" parents, Village gets off to a rousing start when the isolated town of Midwich is cordoned off after some invisible knockout gas descends from above. A few weeks later, every female of childbearing age is pregnant. Much anger and consternation ensue, especially in those families for which the blessed event isn't a blessing.

Nine months later: a town full of blue-eyed, golden-haired cherubs with telekinetic and telepathic powers. The kids mature at an alarming rate and travel the streets in packs. Anyone who looks at them sideways meets with a violent accident. Barbara Shelley, Sanders's wife, is scolded by her child; a motorist who is deemed a threat winds up driving into a wall.

The film is especially refreshing in these days of computer- generated visual effects. Director Wolf Rilla, working from a script cowritten by Stirling Silliphant, generates unease the old-fashioned way: through clammy atmosphere and character development. The opening sequence, in which the military attempts to figure out the extent of the Midwich epidemic, is especially unsettling. --Glenn Lovell