Scary children have been a staple of horror media for decades, and I think Village Of The Damned probably has a lot to do with that. What starts as an inexplicable mystery gradually morphs into a sinister plot and, while the endgame is unclear, the fact that the children are so willing and able to carry it out is what makes it so unnerving. The performances of the children, the fact that most of them say nothing, they all dress alike and stand in weird formation makes for some great visuals. If it was made in American, a film like this would likely have been a reflection of the Cold War, with the children serving as stand-ins for the communists they so deeply feared were living among them. But since its a British film, I surmise it was about the fear of extraterrestrials, a fact the film even alludes to once or twice. It’s a story that conspiracy theorists would tout as example of ‘others’ living among us; Lizard people probably. You can look it in those terms, or just take it as a creepy mystery where a village is overtaken by an outside force and torn apart as a result. However you look at it, VOTD is a tight, well-constructed horror thriller that accentuates the fear by placing it in the hands of those we often deem most innocent. If that sounds like something you’d enjoy, I highly recommend giving it a watch.

A Horror Sci-Fi Classic that's all around really well made. Filled with mood, sharp camerawork, lots of underlying commentary, and doesn't feel too short either. Really the only issues are how did Sanders at the end know how to make a bomb and where did he get it from is a farfetched. Also, while David, Sanders, and the kids in general are super memorable, everyone else while still well acted and super smart sort of just blend in. It does jump around a bit also in the middle individually but we always learn something new and disturbing. It would've been better if it had been like The Thing where there is a lot of characters but majority of the time share the same scene together. This doesn't have that. The kids are amazing villians and are super disturbing and chilling with such a simple effect also. It's really smart and sharp overall. Anyone who is a fan of horror, Sci-Fi, or any actors in this will like this a lot.

Effective chiller about a gang of mysterious blonde children; all born on the same day; who seemingly have supernatural powers; who proceed to terrorize and take over their hometown of Midwhich, England. A resistance to this tyranny grows; led by one child's father; the town professor Gordon Zellaby...With fascinating and terrifying results... The reason this classic sci-fi thriller is so effective is that the director, Rolf Willa, takes a slow-burn approach; letting the story unfold slowly; beat by beat. And that image of those little blonde children, (wearing wigs, black coats and suits, and all marching in complete unison), does get to be quite scarey after awhile. So do the images of all the demonoid children with glowing white eyes... (And that image from this movie has actually become iconic in the horror community...) And so is scarey the leader of the gang, David Zellaby, played by Martin Stephens; talking in his super creepy way...His voice is eerily dubbed by someone else...Which almost presciently predicts the Exorcist 10 years later... The story is also quite powerful but also simple...It stays within it's own internal logic pretty effectively; not straying too far on ridiculous tangents or going to overly-ridiculous extremes...Once it casts it's spell; once it sells you it's central premise... It doesn't require too much extra from the viewer in terms of straining credulity...Which also makes it all the more effective... (It reminds me of Rosemary's Baby that way...Sometimes simpler is better in stories like this...) Anyway...a horror masterwork from England in the early 60s... (Much better than John Carpenter's misguided remake)... This was a important touchstone in the whole evolution of the demon-child genre...And absolutely paved the way for later classics like The Exorcist and The Omen... VERDICT: HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Unquestionably effective, especially for its time, but the exposition could often have been done without dialogue, and with much scarier scenes.

loved this movie!!!!!!

The opening scenes are awesome, and the rest of the movie is pretty darn good too, despite being pretty silly. The kids are creepy, and the adult characters are all very likable. I'll admit, I'm a sucker for that late 50s/early 60s vibe. That makes this an awesome film for any weekend afternoon!

It's a pioneering classic in the horror of child corruption.

One day the inhabitants of a small village are put to sleep by a mysterious force. The people and animals that are affected are contained within a dome-like zone, but nobody is sure what is causing it, as its rigid boundaries remove the possibility of it being the result of gas. In any case nobody cannot enter the area, even with a gas mask, without being rendered unconscious, though a soldier recovers immediately when his body is pulled out of the area. An attempt to fly a plane over the area ends disastrously. These scenes are captured very well in Wolf Rilla's 1960 movie, and a chilling atmosphere of mystery is established. Before the movie's credits have even had time to roll, we watch as the movie's protagonist Gordon Zellaby (George Sanders) collapses in the middle of a phone call. We soon realise he is not the only one. His dog is asleep. So is the telephone operator. A man operating a tractor is unconscious as his vehicle drives in circles before hitting a tree. We catch other glimpses of villagers lying on the floor – an iron burns its way through clothes, a record player runs down, a running tap causes a sink to overflow. As the film begins, we do not know if they are dead or alive. There is only silence, as there is no music during the credits, only the forlorn sound of a church clock tolling the hour. He soon finds out that things are wrong when he notices that a bus has veered off the road. When a policeman cycles over to investigate, he immediately collapses, and Bernard hastily calls in the army. The army are unable to enter the zone to find out what is happening, but soon they see a cow wake up, and the passengers and driver leave the bus. The unusual phenomenon has disappeared as quickly and mysteriously as it began. It seems as if Midwich's problems are over without anyone being harmed except the unfortunate pilot, but worse is to follow. It is unclear what happened during Midwich's time out, but it seems likely that the area quarantined long enough for an alien visitation. A few months later every woman of childbearing age in the village is pregnant, even virgins and a wife whose husband has been away. This creates quite a stir, and soon the children are born within a short time of each other. The children look eerily similar. They all have blonde hair and unusual eyes. To create this effect, the actors playing the children had dark hair, but were made to wear a blonde wig. This made their heads look unusually large, and the change of hair colour added to their unnatural look. The children were then lit in a way that caused their iris and pupil to merge, giving them a sinister appearance. Later an overlay was used to create the glowing eye effect when they are using their powers. The children have abnormal abilities. They communicate with each other telepathically, and even pass on knowledge. Zellaby demonstrates this when he gets one child to solve an Oriental box puzzle, and it becomes clear that all the other children know how to solve the puzzle without being shown. The children share one consciousness, a hive mind. At the bottom of this fear lies the shadow of Nazis. It does not require much of a stretch of the imagination to see something Fascistic in this Arian blonde super-race who are ruthless and amoral. There was always a certain fear in the mind of the opponents of Nazism that this strong, supremely confident ideology did indeed represent the future, and that democracies were held back by their ‘weakness' of having morals and compassion. This time it is not social Darwinism, but actual Darwinism, as the human race's dominance is threatened by a species with superior powers. The story is told in a straightforward and almost banal way with only a few scenes seeking to build up atmosphere. Nonetheless there are some creepy ideas in there. It would be too much to say that the women of Midwich are raped, but they are certainly violated by the alien force. They have a child forcibly implanted in them, and their maternal instincts are exploited to ensure the survival of this cuckoo species. I would have liked to see more of this angle in the movie, which tends to tell the story from a male perspective. It would have been interesting to hear more about what the women thought. We catch a glimpse of it in Anthea's hurt look when she sees that her child does not love her, and her pre-natal fears. When Zellaby mentions about her going to have a baby, she responds, "Whose baby? Yours?" and asks him, "Where did it come from?" This last question raises another issue. This impregnation of the women represents a threat to the masculinity of the male villagers. One man is unable to forgive his wife for what happened to her. Even the humane Zellaby is quick to stress that this is not his baby but his wife's, though it is unclear whether even she contributed anything genetic to the child. The women at least have a role as surrogate mothers, but the men have none at all. The ending is one that seems to ensure the safety of the human race. At least we assume that the threat has been averted. The movie's final image shows the eyes of children leaving the scene, offering some ambiguity about whether their consciousness has been fully destroyed. I wrote a longer appreciation of Village of the Damned and Children of the Damned on my blog page if you would like to read more: https://themoviescreenscene.wordpress.com/2018/06/15/movies-of-the-damned-village-of-the-damned-1960-children-of-the-damned-1964/

Short, and glueing. the time flied so fast with this film. early sci-fi horror. What is more, the child actors are excellent.

I enjoyed this. Fairly easy to digest. Moves at a perfect pace. A good distraction to fill some empty time.

Yeah, 'Village of the Damned' definitely has a better ring to it than the name of the actual novel, 'The Midwich Cuckoos'. Well before The Omen, Children of the Corn, or any number of similar films, Village of the Damned taught us that kids could be creepy. Not bloodthirsty in the slasher sense, that's how you get Chucky. The kids here, led by the career-defining performance from child actor Martin Stephens, are more unnerving than outright violent, hiding behind their pastoral setting and the assumption of childhood innocence as they work towards their unknown ends without a sense of emotion. They're little sociopaths from beyond the stars, but they look like us; it's a weaponization of basic human empathy. Aside from that, this Wolf Rilla film is surprisingly brutal. Given the time period, the adaptation stops shy of showing very much on screen and is a bit bogged down in traditionally British emotional restraint (up until the finale), but the actions of the young antagonists aren't just behind-the-scenes Machiavellian manipulations, they cause a couple of deliberate and gruesome deaths here that you wouldn't expect in Hammer-era English horror, even implied. But even then, there's a twisted practicality to it, because the roving band of smartly-dressed murderous telepathic schoolchildren are acting out of self-preservation, just in a completely emotionless manner. Very Twilight Zone, pretty cool. (3.5/5)

It's like a Twilight Zone episode got expanded by 45 minutes and given a bigger budget. The Village of the Damned is too old to be outright scary but it oozes with creepiness, which is just as good in my book, and it also serves as a helpful reminder to never trust children under any circumstances.

Village of the Damned is a British science fiction thriller that is still surprisingly suspenseful and impactful sixty years after its initial release. A small English town ‘falls asleep' for a few hours, during which women of child-bearing age are mysteriously impregnated. The children are all born on the same day and, as they grow older, show an advanced intelligence and the ability to read minds, among other things. There is a tangible sense of menace throughout the film, aided by the stone-faced performances from the twelve children as they begin to wreak havoc on the community. The film is remarkably well-paced when one considers the events involved and period of time covered over the movie's eighty-minute running time.

Word is that the film was moved from the US to the UK when American religious groups were concerned about the sinister way virgin births were depicted in the film. The location change helped the film's tone and the British children cast were excellent. (Simon Cowell's half-sister is one of the children). Highly recommended, Film's only drawbacks are the substandard special effects and rushed ending.

Mysteriously one day everyone in the village of Midwich suddenly lapses into unconsciousness. After a few hours everyone just as mysteriously wakes up. Two months later every woman in the village who is able to become pregnant finds that they are pregnant. Whats more the embryos are found to develop abnormally fast. The children look eerily alike with blond hair and strange eyes. They are also shown to possess intelligence way beyond their years. As the children grown older they are shown to be able to control other's actions through using their ‘stare' in which their eyes seemingly glow and hypnotise their prey. They are also able to read other's minds. As if that wasn't enough, they display a telepathic bond between themselves also. There soon develops a separation between the ‘normal' children and indeed people of the village and the ‘gifted' children. The twain very rarely mix except within their respective families. But then strange and unaccountable deaths of locals start to occur in the village. One example is of a villager who was an excellent swimmer suddenly drowning. Another example finds the children causing a man to crash his car into a wall at high speed. The dead man's brother tries to avenge his death but is forced by the children to shoot himself instead. The children appear to have a complete lack of empathy, compassion or indeed, humanity. They appear to be complete devoid of emotion or warmth. When dealing with such entities it is realised that drastic measures have to be taken as has been demonstrated by other countries who have also shown evidence of similar mutant children in recent years. And that's all I'm going to tell you! The ending is a real shocker! In fact this is a superb adaptation of one of my favourite books (The Midwich Cuckoos) by one of my favourite authors (John Wyndham- and if you haven't read any of his books I implore you to read some NOW!) Amazing direction, perfectly acted, a great sense of tension until the shocking conclusion. This film wasn't just taboo then but also feels taboo now, such is the power of the material. This was remade by John Carpenter in 1995. There was a VERY funny parody of this movie within The Simpsons with a new movie called The Bloodening playing at a Springfield drive-in. Have a look on YouTube for the clip. It's The Simpsons at their best.

it was intense.i almost felt hypnotized by the kids.lol!

With a brilliantly mysterious opening and a startlingly brutal finale, Village of the Damned is a slow building but impressively crafted horror movie. George Sanders is the perfect fit for the intelligent and sophisticated professor who is pitted against a class of blonde children with dangerous powers. All the children are suitably inhuman and seem more and more dangerous as suspense grows and relationships are strained.

I adore this classic. The setting, the eeriness, the performances, everything. Do not offend my sensibilities by showing me the colorized version, understand? George Sanders is perfection in black and white.

B-movie becomes instant classic. Not too much thinking is needed here, and if you are inquisitive, you won't receive an answer.

A really great movie with some very creepy moments - definitely recommend!