Throughout all the films watched in class, I enjoyed Village of the Damned. The movie tells a story of a small British village where the town is taken over by twelve children from another planet. All twelve children are born at the same time, mysteriously. The main character in the movie who is a scientist and his wife have one of the children and start to notice weird happenings going on throughout the town. All of the children's minds are connected and when one child learns something, all twelve know how do it. The children have the power to make the adults around them to do what they wish, like killing themselves or just to change their mind about something. The scientist figures out a way to stop the mind changing ability of the children by just thinking of a brick wall when they are trying to take over his mind. But with finding out this fact, he realizes that his life will have to be taken to destroy these children. He blows up the school house they are staying in with himself in it in the end. This movie presents another complex discovery plot (onset, discovery, confirmation, and confrontation).
In the first part of the complex discovery plot, Onset, is recognized in the beginning of the movie when the town is being taken over and all the people pass out for hours. When you seeing this, you know that something is not right and something powerful and out of the ordinary is going to happen. After this, the plot is filled with suspense on what made this happen.
Discovery, is soon after the time all the people in the village passed out, several women became pregnant on the same day and all of their pregnancies progressed very quickly. All of the people know something is wrong, but they don't know what to think.
Confirmation is shown when the children are born and all of the people in the village see they are different. They are all maturing very quickly and have the same glowing eyes. People start to notice when weird things start to happen throughout the town that were unexplainable. The children have collective brains to be able to change the adults minds around them. For example, one man almost ran over one of the children and they took over his mind and he drove his car into a brick wall and killed himself. Another man tried to take over and he ended up shooting himself.
Confrontation is when the scientist is able to figure out a way to stop the children by just thinking of a brick wall when they are trying to take over his mind. When he arrives to the school house to announce to the children that he isn't going to help them anymore and wasn't going to make arrangements the scientist was ready for them to try to take over his mind. When this did happen, he just thought of a brick wall to distract the children of what he was really trying to do, destroy them. The school house is blown up with the scientist and the children in it.
The power to take over minds is directly related to the time period the movie was made. During the 1950's there was a communist scare and people in the United States and other countries thought the communist party was going to take over the world. The children represent the emotionless people that were involved during this time that wanted to take over the world.
Village of the Damned has many interpretations by many different viewers. The horror film generates tension through the atmosphere and emotions rather than blood, gore, and violence. The thought of some person having the ability to take over your mind is very fearful and disgusting.
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