My Hulu connection wasn’t working quite right. It kept saying my connection was weak on my Roku stick while I was scanning the movie catalog for a movie to watch. But I did find Village of the Damned, the 1960 sci-fi horror movie about a bunch of blonde-haired kids with psychic powers taking over a small town in the English countryside.
It was short, it was something I had never seen before, and it was a classic last I checked. So, yeah, I was gonna go for this one and still have time for another quick one. Why not?
One day, out of the blue, all the humans and animals in a small English village suddenly lose consciousness. Anyone who wanders too close also goes down, and the military is baffled. Then, just as suddenly, everyone wakes up none the worse for wear aside from the various women of child-bearing age: they’re all pregnant. Yes, regardless of who they were, they all found themselves pregnant.
I actually thought the discovery was well-done. I’m not sure how much censors at the time would allow characters to actually say the word “pregnant” or do more than imply people had sex, but the movie still manages to show a frightened virgin and a woman falsely accused of infidelity in an effective manner without using words like “virgin” or “infidelity”.
The pregnancies don’t last long, and soon a batch of children are all born, phenomenally smart kids with blonde hair that, as they grow and grow fast, they turn into some sort of hive-minded, emotionally-cold beings who see no harm in killing people they deem as threats. And they have a pretty broad definition of “threats”.
Now, a movie like this does need a central character, and that role seems to fall to actor George Sanders as Professor Gordon Zellaby, father (theoretically) to one of the boys. Zellaby is a scientist, an emotionally cool man by nature who meets something approaching approval from the creepy, mind-reading, mind-controlling kids. He’s reluctant to do what seemingly needs to be done, but that doesn’t mean he won’t if pushed to it. Sanders, who I recognize most from All About Eve has the right amount of gravitas for the role. Sure, it’s a stock role, but he does well with it all the same.
The movie does end a bit abruptly, but all told, I had a good time with this one as it was a smart sci-fi flick that didn’t overstay its welcome.
Grade: A-
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