Village of the Damned

Some women give birth various strange children with supernatural power and extraordinary intelligence . An suspenseful and interesting premise dealing about several strangely emotionless children all born at the same time in a small village in Midwich . The scene is a village called Midwich in which a rare event overcomes the idyllic location . At the same moment, every single person and animal in town has passed out just as suddenly ; some unknown force has put all the inhabitants of Midwich to sleep. Everybody falls into a deep, mysterious sleep for several hours in the middle of the day. When the army gets involved, they find this force has precise boundaries. A few hours later, this strange force disappears and everyone wakes up. The mystery remains unsolved for weeks, but it has a sequel. Later on , every woman (Barbara Shelley married to George Sanders) capable of child-bearing is pregnant . All Midwich women of childbearing age are unaccountably pregnant . Nine months later, the babies are born, and they all look normal, but it doesn't take the "parents" long to realise that the kids are not human or humane .And the glowing-eyed children (Martin Stephens , among others) they have will prove to be worse than what they could have feared. The children that are born out of these pregnancies seem to grow very fast and they all have the same blond hair and strange, penetrating eyes that make people do things , all of them have telephatic powers , the stare will paralyze the will of the villagers . They result to be mind-controlling demons or aliens . Meanwhile a government officer (good performance by George Sanders) along with the doctor (Laurence Naismith) attempt to stop their plans of conquest .

This classic Sci-Fi thriller contains chills , suspense , intrigue and creepy events about some precocious deadly children and their quest of power . MGM shelved the project, because it was deemed potentially inflammatory and controversial, specifically due to its sinister depiction of virgin birth . Eerie and strange plot very well developed by the screen-written Sterling Silliphant based on John Wyndham novel titled "The Midwich Cuckoos" that focuses a British village visited by some unknown life form which leaves the women of the village pregnant. Performance is frankly good as main cast as Barbara Shelley and Ronald Colman was originally supposed to star in this film but he passed away in 1958 and was replaced by an excellent George Sanders who married Colman's widow Benita Hume . Exceptional support cast formed by prestigious Brit actors as Michael G. Wynne , Laurence Naismith and very secondary Peter Vaughan as Policeman . Special mention to Martin Stephens as an unsettling little boy , his creepy effect of the glowing eyes was made by matting a negative image of their eyes over the pupils . Intriguing and atmospheric musical score by Ron Goodwin . Furthermore , it packs appropriate cinematography in black and white by Geoffrey Faithful who photographs splendidly the scenarios from the village . This suspenseful and thrilling film is well directed by Wolf Rilla . Rating : Very good , providing pleasant screams for the viewer . Essential and indispensable seeing for Barbara Shelley and George Sanders followers .

Other renditions based on John Wyndham novel titled ¨The Midwich cuckoos¨ and well adapted by Stirling Silliphant are the following : A nice sequel titled ¨Children of the damned (64)¨ by Anton Leader with Ian Hendry , Alan Badel and Barbara Ferris . It's subsequently made an acceptable remake (1995) titled ¨John Carpenter's Village of the damned¨ with the same premise still interesting enough to watch it and starred by Kirstie Alley , Christopher Reeve and Mark Hamill ; however, it suffers from unimaginative account because being a copy from original film with more violent and explicit scenes and fails to provide the intelligent atmosphere from previous story .