VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED: Blu-ray (Universal, 1995) Shout! Factory
The last movie actor, Christopher
Reeve committed to before suffering his hellacious riding accident, 1995’s remake
of Village of the Damned, is also something of a bittersweet farewell
for its director, John Carpenter who, having inculcated his reputation as a
roadshow ‘Hitchcock’ with masterful forays into horror throughout the late 1970’s
and early 80’s, had steadily watched as this Teflon-coated reputation eroded in
the 90’s and beyond. Indeed, by 1995, Carpenter was somewhat best regarded in
the industry for his cult following and recent screen failures, rather than his
trend-setting successes of yore. Yet, with stylishly inventive source material
(John Wyndham’s classy and bone-chilling 1957 novel - The Midwich Cuckoos)
and the template of director, Wolf Rilla’s exemplary 1960 movie to crib from,
how could any remake of Village of the Damned miss? Alas, in Carpenter’s
case – far too easily. The fault this time, arguably, was not Carpenter’s but Universal
Studio’s eleventh-hour decision to prune the budget, forcing Carpenter to either
truncate or entirely cut several key sequences already shot – presumably, for
time constraints. In hindsight, this deprived the picture of virtually all its
carefully plotted chills. Various cast members have since echoed the sentiment
that the movie they made and the one eventually screened bore little earthly resemblance
to one another. And while Carpenter has professed his satisfaction in the
finished product, his has been among the hallowed few to find it as impressive
a venture to wade through with glowing praise.
Ever since 1978’s terrorizing
reboot of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, plans were set in motion to
revive Village of the Damned. In 1981, Lawrence Bachmann, head of
MGM-British Studios where the original classic had been made, vowed to bring
back the terrors of yore, interested in delivering a more faithful adaptation
of the original novel. Owing to financial entrenchment, the project eventually
found a new home at Universal, whose reputation for crafting quality scare-fare
was duly noted. And, as Carpenter and the studio had a lucrative partnership,
he became the obvious choice to helm the project. Carpenter’s decision to relocate the action
from a small British village to Inverness and Point Reyes, California, where he
had previously shot 1979’s The Fog (and where Carpenter also has his
home) seemed a natural. And, reflecting on his version of Village of the
Damned today, the absolute best thing about it are the locations, expertly
photographed by cinematographer, Gary B. Kibbe, who also shot Prince of
Darkness (1987), They Live (1988) and, In the Mouth of Madness
(1994) for Carpenter. But Carpenter disliked the original screenplay by David
Himmelstein and undertook to rewrite most of it himself, while taking no screen
credit for his efforts.
At the time of its release,
industry hype was riding high on Carpenter’s name to deliver the goods. And, in
featuring such high-profile talents as Christopher Reeve, Kirstie Alley, Mark
Hamill, Michael Pare and Meredith Salenger, Carpenter must have fervently believed
he, at least, had the star cache to pull the thing off. Alas, and regrettably –
no – and, mostly for the reason, virtually all of the aforementioned stars came
with their own built-in public personas, difficult to shed to truly become
invisible as their screen alter egos. Owing to changing times and tastes,
Carpenter elected to up the ante in screen violence. Ironically, the general
consensus here is that Carpenter hadn’t gone far enough. I will concur with
that assessment. Apart from a flash of carnage here and there, and the
inference of more yet to follow, though never entirely to materialize, the ‘gross
out’ factor in Village of the Damned is remarkably restrained. True
enough, Carpenter’s filmmaker’s modus operandi has always been to elevate the
horror genre beyond its mere 30-second shock value. But truth to tell,
Carpenter remained more invested in finding the right children to play these
human/alien hybrids, concentrating almost entirely on their ‘look’, and,
subjecting them to multiple screen tests, and later, a chemical dye process to bleach
their tresses, instead to result in some of the kiddies’ actual hair falling
out. Even so, order rather than chaos reigned supreme on Carpenter’s set with
cast and crew admiring the director’s overall investment and professionalism.
Carpenter’s zeal to slavishly
recreate the look of the alien children from the original movie came right down
to the special effect of their glowing eyes, to convey telepathic mind control
over the hapless human victims. In the 1960 movie, shot in B&W, the
children’s glowing orbs were superimposed over still frames. For Carpenter’s
remake, the effect was upgraded with a transition of colored digital mattes and
filters, heightened from green, to orange, and finally, red, then white-hot
pulsating to suggest the absolute power of their diabolical minds. As with Wolf Rilla’s original, Carpenter’s
reboot begins with an ominous preamble depicting the small hamlet of Midwich
under siege from an invisible threat. This has effectively put the entire town
and its surrounding farmlands into a temporary coma. We witness men and women
lying unconscious everywhere, caught in a paralytic time warp while performing
menial household tasks, bodies strewn in the streets and county fair. Rilla had
resisted the urge to punctuate this sequence with any sort of music. Rather obtusely,
Carpenter believes it needs one - a much too-too ‘on the nose’ underscore co-authored
by him and Dave Davies.
Whereas the 1960 Village of the
Damned steadily emerged from this auspicious opener as a superb thriller to
haunt its audience under a hypnotic spell of advancing dread, almost from the
outset, Carpenter’s remake threatens nothing more or better than a cheap
knock-off, albeit, deprived of Rilla’s small-budgeted finesse to cleverly infer
what should otherwise best remain unseen. And this remains the biggest misfire
Carpenter makes in concocting his remake – rather slavish in his desire a
return us to these hallowed horror haunting grounds of yore, without first considering
what terrorized an audience in 1960 has long since become unprepossessing
nonsense for a more blasé fan base, uncomfortably numbed by nearly three
decades of horror/slasher crud. In retrospect, Carpenter’s movie is not as much
a reboot as a regurgitation of Rilla’s classic, with a few minor complications
thrown in, and even more disposable and gratuitous bits of uber-shock and
violence inserted, merely to keep up with, though never to surpass our more
jaded times.
As in the novel, and original
movie, the town of Midwich is mysteriously cast into a collective ‘blackout’
from which ten of its women of child-bearing years become pregnant. Just prior
to this bizarre coma, grade school principal, Jill McGowan (Linda Kozlowski) asked
her husband, Frank (Michael Paré) to fetch a tank of helium for the town’s
carnival. Regrettably, during the blackout, an unconscious Frank drives his
truck into an oncoming vehicle and is killed. Now, government agents, helmed by
Dr. Susan Verner (Kirstie Alley) descend upon the town to launch their
investigation into the pregnancies, including Melanie Roberts (Meredith
Salenger) who, while still a virgin, appears to have undergone an immaculate
conception. While none of the expectant mothers elects to abort their children,
each suffers a series of bizarre dreams. Time passes. The women all give birth
on the same day. Their deliveries are supervised by Verner, alongside the town’s
Dr. Alan Chaffee (Christopher Reeve) whose own wife, Barbara (Karen Kahn) is
among those bringing new life into the world.
Alas, Melanie’s child is delivered stillborn and quickly whisked away to
a secret location by Dr. Verner. The surviving nine are deemed healthy, but
bare an uncanny likeness to one another, sporting albino skin and hair, piercing,
cold/dead eyes, and, a superior intellect well beyond their years.
The Chaffee’s daughter, Mara (Lindsey
Haun) illustrates the most insidious and powerful command of psychic mind
control, forcing Barbara to scald her arm in a pot of boiling water, and later,
dictating her suicide by leaping from a nearby cliff adjacent the family’s home.
The children pair off with a mate, all except for Jill’s son, David (Thomas
Dekker) whose partner ought to have been Melanie’s stillborn daughter. Of the
alien children, (Trishalee Hardy as Julie, Jessye Quarry as Dorothy, Adam
Robbins as Isaac, John Falk as Matt, Renee Rene Simms as Casey, and, Danielle
Keaton as Lily) only David exhibits a hint of understanding for the human side
of his DNA and is, thus, considered an outcast by the others. Isolating themselves
in a barn on the outskirts of town, the alien children begin to acquire a vast
knowledge of the human world while sharing in their complete lack of empathy
for it. After several of the town’s citizens die under awful circumstances,
including Ben Blum (Peter Jason) who is compelled to drive his pickup into a
propane tank, and, Sarah (Pippa Pearthree), the wife of local minster, Father
George (Mark Hamill) who is commanded by the children to set herself afire with
a torch, Father George attempts to assassinate this motley brood. Instead, he
is forced under the children’s mind control to turn his rifle upon himself.
Dr. Verner’s scientific team elect
to hurriedly pack up and depart Midwich. Tragically, Verner is cornered by the
children to reveal the secret place of their stillborn alien baby. Mara then
orders Verner to use a scalpel to disembowel herself. Meanwhile, Dr. Chaffee
has found a way to block the children’s mind control. Preparing an attaché full
of dynamite, he hurries to the barn where they have gathered. Realizing what
Chaffee intends to do, Jill races to the barn to save David from his fate. While
Mara and the others concentrate their psychic powers to break through Chaffee’s
mental roadblock, Jill rescues David moments before Chaffee’s bomb is detonated,
killing him and the rest of the alien/human hybrids. In the final moments, Jill
drives at top speeds through the decimated town of Midwich, comforting David by
suggesting they will go ‘somewhere’ where nobody knows of their past.
The remake of Village of the
Damned is a colossally sloppy, lost opportunity for John Carpenter to
reestablish his supremacy as the master of horror. Almost from the outset, the
picture seems incapable of generating anything more than a slight unease and,
even this, is predicated on familiarity gleaned from the original movie, rather
than by anything fresh or exotically terrifying Carpenter ought to have
interjected into his remake. Christopher
Reeve and Kirstie Alley do their best to infer Midwich is in for a very bad
time. But their scenes, either together or apart, are brief at best,
particularly Alley’s Dr. Verner, who floats in and out of the Himmelstein/Carpenter
narrative like a slightly malignant maven, useless to prevent the death of the
town, or even her own, if - chronically intrigued by both. Whereas the original
movie endeavored to create an ‘us vs. them’, Carpenter’s remake represents
Midwich’s humanity as a disjointed troop of yahoos who breezily succumb to their
fates. At one point, the local police and military are called in to invade the
barn, but instead are compelled to turn upon each other in a horrendous bloodbath.
It all makes for a penultimately gruesome scene, meant to be shocking. But by
then, an impenetrable ennui has truly taken over Carpenter’s direction, as well
as the trajectory of the story.
Undeniably good-looking, thanks to
Kibbe’s cinematography, Village of the Damned lacks character
development, a definite plot, the proper establishment of the passage of time,
and, worst of all, the ominous and palpable cast of fear to make it memorable
in its own right. Instead, mediocrity reigns, plunging the shock and
horror into unintentional, and not even altogether satisfying camp. Perhaps
Carpenter is just out of practice. After a lengthy dispute on his previous pic,
They Live (1988), he did not return to the director’s chair until 1992’s
silly little nothing, Memoirs of an Invisible Man. 1995’s Lovecraftian
horror/fantasy, In the Mouth of Madness seemed to imply Carpenter was on
the cusp of regaining lost artistic ground in the horror genre, a suspicion utterly
deflated by the theatrical release of Village of the Damned. Rilla’s
classic crammed so much panic and danger into just 77-minutes, it is almost insulting
that Carpenter, with a considerably larger budget and run-time (his film is 21-mins.
longer), cannot achieve even half as much. The more elaborately staged ‘deaths’
of the townsfolk are counterintuitive to what is essentially a small story
about a big threat destined to take over the world.
Advanced special effects, generate
pulsating, multi-colored eyes for the alien kids and, in Mara’s final attempt
at breaking through Chaffee’s mental roadblock, a sort of tangerine-and-saffron
glow of her entire skull, lend the movie a few bits of fright that look the
part but equally fail to terrorize. The intellectual ‘to and fro’ between Chaffee
and the children, Carpenter’s feeble attempt to interject some deep-seeded
philosophizing into a story that does not require it, is woefully out of place,
only to delay the children’s inevitable rejection of their human hosts,
perceived as a threat that must be destroyed. And pitting the movies’ ‘Superman’
and ‘Luke Skywalker’ to do battle in humanity’s stead does not exactly
enrich these prospects for humanity at large. Immediately following Village
of the Damned’s critical and box office implosion, Carpenter’s reputation
as the ‘go to’ for horror completely evaporated. Neither his disastrous sequel
to Escape from New York (1981) - (1996’s Escape from L.A.), or 1998’s
Vampires came anywhere near in reestablishing his supremacy. And what
has followed since, 2001’s Ghosts of Mars, and, 2010’s The Ward
has not managed to correct this rapid decline. So, where will the axe fall on
reassessing John Carpenter’s ‘greatness’ in the annals of movie history? Only
time will tell. It surely is not to be found here.
Village of the
Damned gets a pretty deluxe treatment on Blu-ray via Shout! Factory. The
results are unusually solid for Universal, a company not well-regarded for
doing right by their vintage catalogue. Here, the 2.35:1 image, sourced from 35mm
anamorphic theatrical prints, looks pretty astounding, although the main titles
are mysteriously pillar-boxed, with horizontal black bars to the left and right,
as well as top and bottom. Dating back to the movie’s release on LaserDisc,
this has been ‘the norm’, although the DVD release looked pretty darn soft and
muted by comparison. Mercifully, Shout!’s Blu-ray is razor-sharp, crystal
clear, free of age-related artifacts, and sports a color palette that is rich
and vibrant, with exceptionally nuanced contrast and excellent black levels.
DNR has been applied to eradicate film grain, which is not a good thing, as it also
tends to obscure finer details in medium and long shots. There also is
something remiss about the 5.1 DTS audio mix. It hollows out the Universal
fanfare preceding the feature, and distorts the initial score and sound effects
during the opening sequence of the movie. Afterward, things improve and the overall
sonic resonance of the track becomes more robust and satisfying. We also get a
DTS 2.0 stereo, better to replicate the theatrical release and, marginally, to
sound better during the aforementioned opener. Shout! packs 140 mins. of
goodies to augment this dumb show – a 48-min. retrospective with participation
from some of the cast and crew, including Carpenter, along with vintage
interviews, junkets, a stills gallery and badly worn theatrical trailer. All in
all, if you love this movie, you will be impressed with the extras. Bottom
line: Carpenter’s Village of the Damned is a pretty pedestrian affair.
More was expected here, and more’s the pity it fails to live up, either to our
expectations, or even the creepy good time instilled in the original 1960
classic. The Blu is up to snuff. Judge and buy accordingly.
FILM RATING (out
of 5 – 5 being the best)
1
VIDEO/AUDIO
3.5
EXTRAS
5
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