The Damned DVD<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I just finished watching Village of the Damned (1960) and Children of the Damned (1963) on DVD, and I had the odd feeling that I was watching an earlier,\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2005\/09\/the-damned-dvd.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Damned DVD\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I just finished watching Village of the Damned (1960) and Children of the Damned (1963) on DVD, and I had the odd feeling that I was watching an earlier,\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2005\/09\/the-damned-dvd.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"FilmChat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2005-09-05T18:21:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/photos1.blogger.com\/blogger\/7991\/933\/400\/villageofthedamned.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Peter T. Chattaway\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Peter T. Chattaway\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2005\/09\/the-damned-dvd.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2005\/09\/the-damned-dvd.html\",\"name\":\"The Damned DVD\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2005-09-05T18:21:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2005-09-05T18:21:00+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/#\/schema\/person\/5759ddf28b81af08b29eb15b4e071fde\"},\"description\":\"I just finished watching Village of the Damned (1960) and Children of the Damned (1963) on DVD, and I had the odd feeling that I was watching an earlier,\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2005\/09\/the-damned-dvd.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2005\/09\/the-damned-dvd.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2005\/09\/the-damned-dvd.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The Damned DVD\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/\",\"name\":\"FilmChat\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/#\/schema\/person\/5759ddf28b81af08b29eb15b4e071fde\",\"name\":\"Peter T. Chattaway\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/9c4b809df092b410d749a6995bcf4f3e?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/9c4b809df092b410d749a6995bcf4f3e?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Peter T. Chattaway\"},\"description\":\"Peter T. Chattaway was the regular film critic for BC Christian News from 1992 to 2011. In addition to his award-winning film column for that paper, his news and opinion pieces have appeared in such publications as Books & Culture, Christianity Today, Bible Review and the Vancouver Sun. He has also contributed essays to the books Re-Viewing The Passion: Mel Gibson\u2019s Film and Its Critics (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), Scandalizing Jesus?: Kazantzakis\u2019s The Last Temptation of Christ Fifty Years on (Continuum, 2005) and The Bible in Motion: A Handbook of the Bible and Its Reception in Film (De Gruyter, 2016).\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/author\/peterchattaway\"}]}<\/script>\n","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Damned DVD","description":"I just finished watching Village of the Damned (1960) and Children of the Damned (1963) on DVD, and I had the odd feeling that I was watching an earlier,","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2005\/09\/the-damned-dvd.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Damned DVD","og_description":"I just finished watching Village of the Damned (1960) and Children of the Damned (1963) on DVD, and I had the odd feeling that I was watching an earlier,","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2005\/09\/the-damned-dvd.html","og_site_name":"FilmChat","article_published_time":"2005-09-05T18:21:00+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/photos1.blogger.com\/blogger\/7991\/933\/400\/villageofthedamned.jpg"}],"author":"Peter T. Chattaway","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Peter T. Chattaway","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2005\/09\/the-damned-dvd.html","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2005\/09\/the-damned-dvd.html","name":"The Damned DVD","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/#website"},"datePublished":"2005-09-05T18:21:00+00:00","dateModified":"2005-09-05T18:21:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/#\/schema\/person\/5759ddf28b81af08b29eb15b4e071fde"},"description":"I just finished watching Village of the Damned (1960) and Children of the Damned (1963) on DVD, and I had the odd feeling that I was watching an earlier,","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2005\/09\/the-damned-dvd.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2005\/09\/the-damned-dvd.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2005\/09\/the-damned-dvd.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Damned DVD"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/","name":"FilmChat","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/#\/schema\/person\/5759ddf28b81af08b29eb15b4e071fde","name":"Peter T. Chattaway","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/9c4b809df092b410d749a6995bcf4f3e?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/9c4b809df092b410d749a6995bcf4f3e?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Peter T. Chattaway"},"description":"Peter T. Chattaway was the regular film critic for BC Christian News from 1992 to 2011. In addition to his award-winning film column for that paper, his news and opinion pieces have appeared in such publications as Books & Culture, Christianity Today, Bible Review and the Vancouver Sun. He has also contributed essays to the books Re-Viewing The Passion: Mel Gibson\u2019s Film and Its Critics (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), Scandalizing Jesus?: Kazantzakis\u2019s The Last Temptation of Christ Fifty Years on (Continuum, 2005) and The Bible in Motion: A Handbook of the Bible and Its Reception in Film (De Gruyter, 2016).","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/author\/peterchattaway"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1116"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2616\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}

{"id":2616,"date":"2005-09-05T18:21:00","date_gmt":"2005-09-05T18:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2005\/09\/the-damned-dvd\/"},"modified":"2005-09-05T18:21:00","modified_gmt":"2005-09-05T18:21:00","slug":"the-damned-dvd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2005\/09\/the-damned-dvd.html","title":{"rendered":"The Damned DVD"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

I just finished watching Village of the Damned<\/a><\/i> (1960) and Children of the Damned<\/a><\/i> (1963) on DVD, and I had the odd feeling that I was watching an earlier, British, black-and-white version of the Omen<\/i> trilogy<\/a> (1976-81). You\u2019ve got desperate adults puzzled by, and ultimately turning against, their own evil offspring; you\u2019ve got scenes of people being hypnotized; and you\u2019ve got massive continuity problems and drastic re-imaginings of the story\u2019s central premise.<\/span><\/p>\n

For example, the original film, based on a John Wyndham novel (The Midwich Cuckoos<\/a><\/i>) that I have never read, makes the point that all these children are essentially alien offspring; the children, who have been born in several places around the world, all have blond hair, and in a few places, the children are immediately killed, because their appearance is radically at odds with the appearance of the locals or because it violates the local taboos. It is only British decency and civility and tolerance that allows the children in the town of Midwich to survive as long as they do.<\/p>\n

In the sequel, however, six children with identical skills are born in six different countries, and each one looks like a normal member of the local ethnic group; what\u2019s more, exactly how<\/i> these children were born is never revealed, even though at least one of them was apparently born of a virgin, but we are told that they represent the next step in human<\/i> evolution. And then the film goes so far as to suggest that they are not evil, but only very powerful and self-defensive, and if only we poor humans were not so fearful and irrational we could all live together in peace!<\/p>\n

Never mind the differences in concept or backstory; the incongruity between these two films on a purely thematic<\/i> level is enough to give you whiplash. I can\u2019t remember the last time I saw a sequel that so profoundly rejected and inverted the whole point of the original film. The \u201cperfection\u201d of the children in the first film is ultimately something to be feared, because it is cold, alien, inhuman, rational, and without emotion. In the sequel, however, it is human emotion that is ultimately to blame, and the children \u2014 one of whom does admit to being frightened for her survival! \u2014 represent a form of \u201cperfection\u201d that we ought to embrace.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sure the Cuban Missile Crisis, which took place between the two films, is to blame for some of this. The people who made the sequel suddenly felt the need to be \u201crelevant\u201d or something, to send out a message of love and peace. (A portrait of Gandhi hangs on the wall of one Indian official, and wouldn\u2019t you know it, screenwriter John Briley went on to write Richard Attenborough\u2019s hagiographical 1982 biopic Gandhi<\/a><\/i>, and to win an Oscar for doing so.) But it makes the film awfully dated and self-important.<\/p>\n

The first film feels dated too, of course, in terms of its cinematic or narrative conventions. For example, the notion that \u201cperfection\u201d requires a modernist, scientific, emotionless outlook was still popular, and was still being challenged, during the original Star Trek<\/a><\/i> series (1966-69), but I don\u2019t think it has so much currency today. The thing is, it does not feel like the makers of that film were using it as a soapbox to preach a political point. And it ends on a wonderfully eerie note, with pairs of eyes soaring into the night sky like bats, which the sequel utterly fails to capitalize on.<\/p>\n

Two comments re: the casting of Village of the Damned<\/i>. First, after seeing George Sanders play so many haughty, sarcastic, droll figures \u2014 from the Philistine king in Cecil B. DeMille\u2019s Samson and Delilah<\/a><\/i> (1949; my comments<\/a>) to Shere Khan in Walt Disney\u2019s The Jungle Book<\/a><\/i> (1967; my comments<\/a>), to say nothing of his Oscar-winning turn in All About Eve<\/a><\/i> (1950) \u2014 it was funny to see him play an earnest scientist and devoted husband.<\/p>\n

And I cracked up when I realized that Sanders\u2019 equally earnest military brother-in-law was being played by Michael Gwynn, who went on to play the con artist \u201cLord Melbury\u201d in the premiere episode of Fawlty Towers<\/a><\/i> (1975)! That was kinda funny.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"