100 Scariest Movie Moments: #92 Village of the Damned

I'm a bit uncertain how to take the children in Village of the Damned. The adult characters certainly treat them as evil, but their existence isn't their own fault. The premise of this movie is that an entire town of people suddenly fell into a coma. And while they were unconscious, all of the women of child-bearing age became pregnant, giving birth to rapidly-aging, very light blond-haired psychics.

During the main portion of the film the children, while appearing twelve, are only three. So it’s never clear whether the children themselves are inherently evil, or simply immature, not yet having had time to develop empathy. Furthermore, we're told that several instances of these children being born have occurred elsewhere in the world. Most were killed as infants, and when the colony in Russia attempted to take over a small town, the entire town was nuked.

The children do repeatedly assert that they simply want to survive, and even imply that they won't try to take over the town, since that would be repeating a strategy which they already know failed once. I never see any reason to doubt them on this. On at least one occasion we see them agree not to come in person to a store anymore, because they're making the storekeeper uncomfortable. They're also perfectly open about their powers, even if they never give clear answers on their origins (although there's never any real indication they know more than anyone else).

That's what makes this film difficult for me to talk about as a horror movie. I just don't see it that way. I see it as a tragedy. Over the course of the film, the children do begin to mature; the use of their powers developing from petty revenge to self-defense.

That's not to say that the human characters were wrong either. The children unquestionably represented a very real threat. In that lies the true strength of the movie; a conflict that cannot be avoided or compromised upon. The children must fight for their own survival, and by the end of the film it's clear that the humans must also attempt to ensure their own.

The ending of the movie is fairly well-known now. The father of one of the children (George Sanders), who has acted as their teacher, plants a bomb in their classroom, and then thinks of a brick wall to prevent them from reading his mind until its too late. I think the ambiguity of this movie was very much intentional, as the movie ends on the explosion, showing us neither grief nor jubilation at the deaths of the children.

So yes, this is a good movie. As for the horror aspect, I never once felt frightened. I'd classify this more as a sci-fi movie rather than horror, but I can definitely see where some would be frightened by it.