Rating: 
Summary: Carpenter's Most Underrated
Review: I love this movie.Thing is, I rented it not expecting much but I was riveted by the story,eeriness,and wonderful cinematography. I don't understand why this movie is so hated,but maybe it's stature will improve over the years (Carpenter's movies have that effect often to people). Beware of some of the reviews below as they spoil major plotlines and would diminish your viewing.Beware the Children too!
Rating: 
Summary: Better than I thought it would be
Review: I saw the 1960 version of Village of the Damned some months ago and my expectations of this remake weren't very high. But I was pleased to find out that it was actually good, actually much better than I thought it would be. Several changes have been made in the story and the characters. One big change can be found in the personality of one of the children, David. The child actors are as good in this movie as in the original. They are eerie, but maybe slightly less than in the original version, because of the screenplay possibly due to the fact that this movie is in color.This movie is not quite as good or well-written as the original version, but it's still very entertaining and a great choice of a movie to rent, or even to buy.
Rating:
Summary: NOT YOUR AVERAGE RUGRATS
Review: I saw the original "Village of the Damned" when it was released back in 1960. Being a child myself, I was horrified at those evil little kids with the white hair and the glowing eyes. The inimitable George Sanders and that lovely British horror queen Barbara Shelley starred and it scared the bejesus out of me! Now in the latter part of the 20th century, horror maven John Carpenter remakes it, and along with "The Thing", Carpenter did himself well in making the remakes original in their own rights without sacrificing the mood and feel of the earlier versions. There is an innate eeriness in evil children; one cannot remove one self from realizing that despite all the evil they are doing, they are still children. Christopher Reeve is gallant and controls the nuances of his performance; Kirstie Alley is deliciously over the top in her role as the government scientist who wants to (what else) study the children; Mark Hamill makes a rare appearance as the town's minister, and he gives the role an unusual grace and subtlety to a cliche role; the children all do nicely, as one would expect children to do. Lindsey Haun as Mara and Thomas Dekker as David are especially memorable. However, for me, Linda Kozlowski's performance as Jill, David's mother, commands the essence of futility but firm hope, and makes her the real "star" of the film. Hard to believe she's Crocodile Dundee's woman, in this change of pace role.
The music and cinematography are also supportive.
A GOOD THRILLER.
Rating: 
Summary: it is anamorphic widescreen
Review: I saw the original "Village of the Damned" when it was released back in 1960. Being a child myself, I was horrified at those evil little kids with the white hair and the glowing eyes. The inimitable George Sanders and that lovely British horror queen Barbara Shelley starred and it scared the bejesus out of me! Now in the latter part of the 20th century, horror maven John Carpenter remakes it, and along with "The Thing", Carpenter did himself well in making the remakes original in their own rights without sacrificing the mood and feel of the earlier versions. There is an innate eeriness in evil children; one cannot remove one self from realizing that despite all the evil they are doing, they are still children. Christopher Reeve is gallant and controls the nuances of his performance; Kirstie Alley is deliciously over the top in her role as the government scientist who wants to (what else) study the children; Mark Hamill makes a rare appearance as the town's minister, and he gives the role an unusual grace and subtlety to a cliche role; the children all do nicely, as one would expect children to do. Lindsey Haun as Mara and Thomas Dekker as David are especially memorable. However, for me, Linda Kozlowski's performance as Jill, David's mother, commands the essence of futility but firm hope, and makes her the real "star" of the film. Hard to believe she's Crocodile Dundee's woman, in this change of pace role.
The music and cinematography are also supportive.
A GOOD THRILLER.
Rating:
Summary: NOT YOUR AVERAGE RUGRATS
Review: I saw the original "Village of the Damned" when it was released back in 1960. Being a child myself, I was horrified at those evil little kids with the white hair and the glowing eyes. The inimitable George Sanders and that lovely British horror queen Barbara Shelley starred and it scared the bejesus out of me! Now in the latter part of the 20th century, horror maven John Carpenter remakes it, and along with "The Thing", Carpenter did himself well in making the remakes original in their own rights without sacrificing the mood and feel of the earlier versions. There is an innate eeriness in evil children; one cannot remove one self from realizing that despite all the evil they are doing, they are still children. Christopher Reeve is gallant and controls the nuances of his performance; Kirstie Alley is deliciously over the top in her role as the government scientist who wants to (what else) study the children; Mark Hamill makes a rare appearance as the town's minister, and he gives the role an unusual grace and subtlety to a cliche role; the children all do nicely, as one would expect children to do. Lindsey Haun as Mara and Thomas Dekker as David are especially memorable. However, for me, Linda Kozlowski's performance as Jill, David's mother, commands the essence of futility but firm hope, and makes her the real "star" of the film. Hard to believe she's Crocodile Dundee's woman, in this change of pace role.
The music and cinematography are also supportive.
A GOOD THRILLER.
Rating:
Summary: ITS A GOOD MOVIE
Review: I THANK ITS A REAL GOOD MOVIE
Rating: 
Summary: A travesty of the John Wyndham book.
Review: I wouldn't normally waste time on something this bad, and I'll waste as little as possible here. This movie is a remake of the superb 1960's movie, and both are based on John Wyndham's 'The Midwich Cuckoos'. Please, please do yourself a favour and read the book. If you've already seen or get to see Carpenter's movie, you'll suddenly be able to understand many points that he has left obscure or obliterated through cheap tricks and fumbling attempts to 'update' the story. And you'll appreciate Wyndham's exceptional intelligence, imagination, and uncanny ability to capture a community's time and place and its reaction to the incomprehensible.
Rating:
Summary: The freakest thing I've ever seen!
Review: I'm not one who favors horror or science fiction, but I love this movie! I must admit that every time I see it I get scared, but that's half the fun of watching it! I was only 11 when I first saw it back in '96, but now it's a Halloween tradition to watch it every year! I think half the reason I find it scary is because of the children with their bleach-white hair and their deathy (literally) eyes. Christopher Reeve and Kirstie Alley do an outstanding job searching for the answers in what caused this strange behavior. If anything, rent this movie and see for yourself just how scary, but just how good this movie truely is!
Rating:
Summary: This is an awful movie.
Review: I'm still a little dumbfounded as to how John Carpenter has so many fans. He's made more bad movies than good ones and the past ten years haven't been his best. Ghosts of Mars could be a comeback, but with Ice Cube in the lead role of that film I wouldn't get my hopes up. With Village of the Damned, Carpenter wastes a mildly interesting premise, favoring explicit violence over subtle chills. The film just gets progressively worse, up to the overdone finale that features endless carnage (a la The Haunting), but no scares. The performances don't help much. Christopher Reeve tries his best but he's overcome by a script that doesn't let him do much. Kirstie Alley's appearance is really quite pointless. Everybody else isn't in the film enough. It's a movie like this that makes me wonder if Carpenter really has that much talent.
Rating: 
Summary: "I Must Think of a Brick Wall"
Review: If horror maven John Carpenter decides to do a remake of a classic sci-fi horror film, it should be safe for fans to assume that it's gonna be great. After all, this is the groundbreaking filmmaker who turned Michael Myers into a slasher-film icon in HALLOWEEN (1978) and directed the highly revered THE THING (1982), itself a remake of the classic 1951 film THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD. So when Mr. Carpenter's 1995 remake of the classic 1960 thriller VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED came out, it should've been a fantastic cinematic experience for horror and science-fiction fans. It should've been. Sadly, it wasn't. For those of you unfamiliar with the basic plot of both films, here's a quick summary. In the middle of a seemingly average day, all of the residents of a small village mysteriously fall unconscious, and anyone attempting to go into the slumbering village also passes out. When the folks finally awaken, most everything seems to be perfectly normal. Normal, that is, with the exception that all of the women of the village capable of bearing children are pregnant. The mystery children are all birthed nine months later, and as they grow, it is very apparent that all of them have eerily similar physical characteristics. Also, they mature and learn much faster than the average child, which is creepy enough. But the real terror begins when they start exercising their preternatural psychic powers. In the original 1960 film, it was always tacitly implied that the strange children were fathered by extraterrestrials, but nothing occurs in the film to blatantly prove such. This actually adds to the mystery of the origin of the children, which in turn heightens the suspense and terror...and the fun for the audience. Unfortunately, Carpenter's 1995 remake loses most of this fear-of-the-unknown suspense when it is revealed that one of the children had miscarried, and the aborted fetus, which has been preserved in the office of the village doctor, looks like the stereotypical sci-fi alien, complete with bug-eyes and an almond-shaped head. The original film stars British actor George Sanders as the astute "father" of one of the mystery tots who eventually infers the evil nature of the village offspring and ultimately saves the world. Sanders was an accomplished veteran of both the British and U.S. cinema, and his talent and experience add a great deal of credibility to the film's fantastic plot. But for some reason, John Carpenter chose to cast Christopher Reeve as the lead in his remake. Though Reeve is an adequate actor who did a fine job as Clark Kent and his titular alter ego in SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE (1978), he just simply does not have the range or depth of Sanders and is therefore unable to pull off a convincing average-Joe hero. Add to this the tepid performance of supporting actress Kirstie Alley (TV's CHEERS)--here grossly miscast as a government scientist--and it becomes impossible for the audience to suspend its disbelief and surrender to the fantasy of this film. Carpenter's remake of VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED is not without its moments, however. Gore hounds and fans of slasher films like Carpenter's HALLOWEEN will enjoy the scene where a man lies roasting on a barbeque grill. And though they are not as genuinely eerie as the children in the original film, the evil kiddos in Carpenter's remake can often be creepy little brats, and some of their scenes are quite scary. Overall, the 1995 remake of VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED is a disappointment, and true horror fans should avoid it and instead push harder for the original 1960 film to get the DVD treatment. In the mean time, fans who want to spend an evening with John Carpenter will probably get more satisfaction from viewing one of his other films like THE FOG (1980) or THEY LIVE (1988).
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