The Village of the Damned (1995)

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Movie
German title The village of the damned
Original title John Carpenter's Village of the Damned
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1995
length 95 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director John Carpenter
script David Himmelstein
production Sandy King
Michael Preger
music John Carpenter
Dave Davies
camera Gary B. Kibbe
cut Edward A. Warschilka
occupation

Village of the Damned is a horror film by John Carpenter in 1995. The film is a remake of the eponymous film of 1960. Both films are based on the novel cuckoo children (The Midwich Cuckoos) by John Wyndham . The film was shown for the first time in Germany at the Oldenburg International Film Festival on September 1, 1995.

action

In the coastal village of Midwich, the doctor Dr. Alan Chaffee with his wife Barbara who works as a broker. In the village also live u. a. the teacher Jill McGowan, the pastor George and the manic-depressive Melanie Roberts.

Midwich residents want to celebrate a village anniversary on a summer's day. Everything that has rank and name is on its feet. Alan Chaffee goes to a gas station further away and leaves Midwich. Meanwhile, Jill asks her husband Frank to get something from a neighboring town and starts looking for new finger paints herself. Around ten o'clock something strange happens: all the villagers, including pets and grazing cattle, faint. Jill's husband, who is returning from his errand, also passes out while driving, just before he reaches Midwich. He crashes into a broken-down truck, whereupon his car explodes and he loses his life.

The smoke alerted police and security agencies, who put up a barrier as officers who entered the place were also unconscious. The head of operations is the doctor Dr. Susan Verner from the National Science Foundation . She tells the arriving Alan that something must have happened in Midwich that affects all residents, especially since no one can be reached by phone or other means. After exactly six hours, people and grazing cattle wake up again; Alan and Dr. Verner drive to town with the police and the military. There, too, the villagers came to. One of the villagers fell on his charcoal grill during the blackout and was burned. Beyond that, however, no consequences can initially be determined.

A few weeks after the incident, Alan discovers that ten women are pregnant (including his wife Barbara and Melanie, who is a virgin). It turns out that the time of conception falls on the day of the blackout. Dr. Verner is very interested in this phenomenon and offers the pregnant women and their families a lot of money when they bear and raise the children. Nine months later, the women give birth to five boys and five girls at the same time, but one of the girls, whose mother is Melanie, dies in childbirth. Dr. Verner examines the stillborn baby. A DNA test determines that the children are not genetically related to their supposed parents.

Alan and Dr. Verner are now discussing how the women could get pregnant at all. Dr. Verner initially suggests parthenogenesis , the self-fertilization of the egg in the woman's uterus. However, since this is not known in humans, she immediately rejects this idea. From their point of view, there is still xenogenesis , i.e. the implantation of a fetus in the womb.

Although the children are not descended from the local husbands and partners, the women want to keep their children. Alan calls his foster daughter Mara, Jill names her son David. The children grow very quickly and in the following period there are a number of accidents and suicides in the village. The first victim is Alan's wife Barbara, who first has to be rescued by Jill when she dips her hand into boiling water and shortly after throws herself off a cliff to her death. The children now all look very similar and are unusually intelligent. They always march through the village in pairs and all wear the same outfit. The leader is Alan's daughter Mara. All of them have a partner, except for Jill's son David, who is alone because “his” partner died in childbirth.

The second victim of mysterious incidents is the local ophthalmologist who accidentally dripped white spirit instead of contact agent into the eyes of one of the children during an examination. The girl screams in pain, whereupon Mara comes into the treatment room. She forces the doctor to burn her eyes with the benzine. The village pastor worries about the safety of his congregation and Jill asks Alan to teach the children because they seem the only ones to respect him. Alan has his problems teaching, however, as Mara does not want the group fully to work. He finds out that David knows about the deceased girl, which remains inexplicable. Melanie, the mother of the deceased child, has meanwhile taken her own life.

The third victim is caretaker Carlton, who is addicted to drinking and who hits one of the children with his broom at school. The children get him to climb onto the roof, plunge himself into the depths and impale himself with a broomstick. Then Dr. Verner Alan about the fact that there are even more villages worldwide with such cuckoo children. She shows him the hidden, stillborn baby. When Alan sees the dead baby, it is clear that the children are not human. Dr. Verner urges Alan to lock his mind so the children don't find out that Alan has discovered this secret. That same evening, Mara tries to read his thoughts, but he can seal them off by thinking of water waves. Mara offers Alan that the children will from now on live in a remote barn and that he will have to look after them. That same evening, the parents bring their children to the barn.

Midwich's fourth victim is one of the fathers who tries to force his daughter Judy (one of the cuckoo children) home after the mother became hysterical. But the children get the man to sit in his car and race into a gas tank, which then explodes. Dr. Meanwhile, Verner tells Alan that the other villages with cuckoo children were destroyed. The village of Midwich is also to be destroyed in order to kill the children. Alan confronts Mara. Mara explains to Alan that the group must flee and move to another location. And let Alan help them with that.

Meanwhile, David is increasingly viewed by Mara as a troublemaker because he has developed a will of his own. The children are watched by the village pastor, who has a hunting rifle at the ready and wants to kill Mara. But suddenly four of the children stand behind him and force him to shoot himself. In the evening there are riots in the village. Sarah, the pastor's widow, is furious and marches towards the barn, leading the villagers, armed with torches and pitchforks. The village mob is stopped by the children. Because Sarah drops her torch in front of her, she burns alive. The villagers flee in horror. Meanwhile, Dr. Verner is visited by the children in her office and made to kill himself.

Now the National Guard is trying to storm the barn. However, the approaching officers are tricked into killing each other by the children. Meanwhile, Alan decides to destroy the children with the help of a suitcase bomb. He drives to the barn and confronts the children again. Mara asks him if he has looked into ways to escape. Alan ignores them. And he wants to save David. Alan wants to send him out of the barn under a pretext. Jill also arrives at the barn and watches the children try to read Alan's mind. But they don't make it. All they can see is a stone wall. When Jill tries to run away with David, Mara attacks her telepathically. David runs to Mara and knocks her to the ground. Jill takes the opportunity and runs away with David. The children now attack Alan's mental block so strongly that they can recognize the time bomb in the suitcase in his mind. But it is already too late, the barn is blown up and the remaining eight children are killed along with Alan.

Jill finally leaves Midwich in the car and with her son David.

background

  • Carpenter made a small guest appearance in the film as Rip Haight , the man who calls the gas station.
  • The Village of the Damned received devastating reviews in the US and also failed with the US audience. The box office results were well below Universal Pictures' expectations . For this reason, the decision was not the movie after Germany in the cinema to bring. No other film distributor was interested in the film either. It was published in German-speaking countries only on laser disc , video and later on DVD .
  • The Book of the Damned , which Dr. Alan Chaffee in one scene does indeed exist. As mentioned in the film, it was made by Charles Fort .

criticism

"Horror of the gentler kind, which is less aimed at effects than at creating a threatening atmosphere."

- Lexicon of international film

Awards

The film was nominated for the Golden Raspberry in 1996 in the Worst Remake or Sequel category.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The Village of the Damned. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used