Subject: REVIEW: VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED (1995)

From: [email-masked] (Ben Hoffman)
Date: Thu, 4 May 1995 13:33:52 GMT

VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED (1995)
		       A film review by Ben Hoffman
			Copyright 1995 Ben Hoffman

     There have been several movie versions of John Wyndham's stories,
none of which I have seen.  Director John Carpenter thought the film's
story would be improved if it were made more current. I don't much like
the genre of spooky films but I must say this one has a somewhat better
twist than most of that type.

     There's a little town of Midwich where nothing exciting ever
happens.  Every now and then a cloud, accompanied by ominous sounds,
passes over the town, and strange thing begin to happens.  Dr. Chaffee
(Christopher Reeve) finds he is being besieged by an inordinate number
of women who have become pregnant. He then becomes aware that the
conceptions took place on the same day, the day of a school outing ...
and that the cloud had passed over the town.

     Suspicious that something odd is going on, Dr. Chaffee calls on
the Federal Government to send someone to investigate this new
phenomenon.  The epidemiologist they send is Dr Susan Verner (Kristie
Alley) who, by the way, is a chain smoker.  Has no one told her about
the dangers of smoking?

     Of the ten children who are born, nine survive, apparently
healthy.  They all look very much alike with piercing eyes and whitish
blond hair which gives rise to the reasonable assumption that they were
all sired by the same "father."  As the boys and girls grow, they
begin to display weird, un-childlike behavior.  If they focus their
eyes on you (in a strange color), you will be involved in a fatal
accident very shortly.  Everyone soon realizes that these kids are not
to be antagonized or thwarted.

     That's pretty much the basis for the film.  What the children do,
what Dr. Chaffee and Dr. Vermeer do to try to stop what is happening is
what makes up the film.  Incidentally, there have, according to Dr.
Vermeer, been similar incidents recently in other parts of the world.
OoooooHHHHHooooo!.

     Others in the cast include Linda Koslowski, Michael Pare, Mark
Hamill and Karen Kahn, among others.

2 bytes
4 Bytes = Superb
3 Bytes = Too good to be missed.
2 Bytes = So so.
1 Byte  = Save your money.

Ben Hoffman