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Village of the Damned (1960,
UK)
In director Wolf Rilla's scary and sinister B-movie
horror film (about an alien takeover) - loosely adapted from John
Wyndham's 1957 sci-fi novel The Midwich Cuckoos, the tagline
asked: "What Demonic Force Lurks Behind Those Eyes?" It also warned: "Beware
the Stare That Will Paralyze the Will of the World." At the
time of its release during the Cold War, the film functioned as an
allegory for the Communist Scare of the 1950s, with its paranoia
about violent aggressors in the form of children.
[Note: A sequel soon followed, director Anton M. Leader's
Children of the Damned (1964, UK), and it was later remade
as John Carpenter's Village
of the Damned (1995) starring Christopher Reeve. Other films
with murderous youth included The Omen (1976), Who Can Kill a Child? (1976, Sp.),
and Children of the Corn (1984).]
- in the film's opening during what was dubbed a "time
out," a mysterious force-field, represented by a mist, caused
everyone to collapse or fall asleep (or go unconscious) in the
rural British village of Midwich; a 5-mile impenetrable
bubble was established around the area that was affected during
an investigation; local authorities in the
area took precautionary measures to seal off the village, but then
after about four hours, everyone awakened
- within a month or two, the townsfolk
discovered that every woman of child-bearing age in the town
had become pregnant at exactly the same time (during the event),
including a virgin named Milly Hughes (Pamela Buck), unwed young
teenaged girls and even married women whose husbands had been absent
for months; husband James Pawle (Thomas Heathcote)
who had been at sea for a full year, was upset upon his return
to learn that his wife Janet Pawle (Charlotte
Mitchell) was pregnant; there were many accusations of infidelity and premarital
sex, although the conceptions were virginal - and all at exactly
the same time
- the phenomenon appeared to be a mass, extraterrestrial
insemination event (possibly due to an interstellar energy beam),
using all the females as incubators - with unpredictable consequences;
it was discovered through follow-up studies that the same phenomena
of simultaneous insemination and births occurred in other places
around the world (Australia, Greenland, Mongolia, and the Soviet
Union), although there were differing circumstances
- after five months, the
village's Dr. Willers (Laurence Naismith) noted that the fetus development
of the pregnancies was accelerated and the unborn babies were actually
in their 7th month; at the time of their simultaneous births, all
the babies were about 10 lbs. in weight
- a spawned group of twelve hyper-intelligent, glowing-eyed
kids (a mutant alien race?) with raised foreheads were born; after
four months, the babies had advanced physical development approximately
equating to a year and a half
- the children turned out to behave strangely - they
were telepathic, blonde-haired, unemotional, highly intelligent and precocious, group-minded,
and naturally bonded to each other
- the leader
of the deadly-staring, mind-controlling and mind-reading robotic drone-children was David
Zellaby (Martin Stephens); David's father, resident
scientist Professor Gordon Zellaby (George Sanders), volunteered to
teach (and study) the children under one roof in the village's brick
schoolhouse; he noticed that the children had strong powers of shared
consciousness and communal thinking, and could often read his thoughts
- there were odd instances in which residents of the
town died under mysterious circumstances from the destructive forces
generated by the seemingly-innocent children; after an accident that
slightly injured one of the children, the driver entered into a trance
and drove into a wall with his vehicle to kill himself; the vengeful
brother of the deceased driver was compelled to pull his shotgun
trigger and blow his head off
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The Dead Driver's Vengeful Brother Put Into a Trance
- with a Suicidal Shotgun Blast
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- in the film drew to its end, Professor Zellaby realized
he had to curtail the destructive powers of the special children,
who were determined to survive and take over the village, and then
spread out to form new colonies; the Professor began to construct
a bomb to destroy the children, but needed to avoid being detected
by keeping his mind blank; he practiced concentrating on a brick
wall as a non-penetrable mental barrier
- then, Professor Zellaby faced-off
against David, his own son, in the classroom of the brick
schoolhouse; the children approached the desk where
he had set his briefcase (with a bomb, triggered and timed to detonate
and kill all of them); David was puzzled but then revealed that he
had figured out his father's deadly plan: "You're
not thinking of atomic energy - you're thinking of a brick wall!"
"You're thinking of a brick wall!"
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"A brick wall...a brick wall"
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David Zellaby Approaching His Father's Desk in Schoolhouse
Classroom
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The Briefcase (with the Bomb Inside)
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David's Glowing Eyes Penetrating Into His Father's Mind
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- with a sweaty brow, the self-sacrificing Professor
struggled to concentrate and maintain his single-minded thought
- the image of the brick wall in his mind, to prevent the children
from learning that he was blocking his thoughts about destroying
them: (voice-over) "A
brick wall... a brick wall... I must think of a brick wall... a brick
wall... I must think of a brick wall... a brick wall... brick wall...
I must think of a brick wall... It's almost half past eight... brick
wall... only a few seconds more... brick wall... brick wall... brick
wall... nearly over... a brick wall..."
- a view of the brick wall was superimposed over the
Professor's face as his will was perceptably weakened, the childrens'
eyes glowed, and the brick wall began to slowly crumble (revealing
the bomb behind it), but the alien children were unable to prevent
destruction - the bomb exploded at exactly eight-thirty, killing
all of the children and the Professor
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Force-Field Causing People to Fall Unconscious in British
Village of Midwich, including Main Character Professor Zellaby (George
Sanders)
Virginal Milly Hughes with Baffled Dr. Willers - She's Pregnant
Professor Zellaby's Newborn Son David
Glowing-Eyed, Blonde-Haired Leader of Robotic Children
David Zellaby (Martin Stephens)
Deadly-Staring Mind-Controlling and Mind-Reading Children
A Hypnotized Driver Compelled to Crash His Vehicle
Into Wall and Kill Himself
The Crashed Car Burning in Background
The Professor's Assembly of the Time-Bomb With Sticks of Dynamite
The Eyes of Children After Explosion
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