Wolf Rilla's Village of the Damned
In Wolf Rilla's great classic from 1960 a whole town suddenly falls unconscious, for no apparent reason. The military is called and during an observation flight over the village, the pilot gets the same thing, loses consciousness and cashes the plane. Everyone is extremely confused by this phenomenon but all of the sudden everyone regain consciousness seems unharmed but no reason for the happening can be found. Two months later all the women and girls of the village finds themselves pregnant. Without knowing that everyone else in the village are also pregnant Gordon and Anthea Zellaby are utterly exited about their news only to be worried a few months later when the infant is growing in an extraordinary speed. All families are experiencing the same remarkable speed of their unborn babies and all of a sudden, all goes in to labour and give birth to healthy, very healthy children. The Zellaby's name their child, David, and David and the rest of the children grows three times as fast as normal children and shows a highly developed intelligence and Gordon is one of the men trying to make sense of this peculiar situation. When a few people dies in strange accidents, Gordon suspects the children of having a powerful gift of controlling people and their actions and he soon finds out he is right, and now the destruction of the children is crucial for the survival of mankind.
Vicious kids in blond wigs and glowing eyes.. well not much more is needed for a scary film I think.
I have seen this film numerous times and for me it is one of the scariest and most eerie films of this genre. Obviously the story of evil kids is a big contribution, and it always work as a scare technique, just look at Pet Cemetery, Omen or Children of the Corn. The effect with the glowing eyes is very effective but most of all, highly inventive, the director used a reversed negative and put over the pupils to give them the effect of glowing. George Sanders plays Gordon Zellaby and as always he is magnificent, together with Wolf Rilla's as director this film is a sci-fi-horror classic.
