Village of the Damned has three major problems. In no particular order… I’ll start with the stunt casting. Christopher Reeve, Kirstie Alley, Mark Hamill and Michael Paré are all–to varying degrees–genre actors. While Reeve and Paré are both fine, Alley’s out of her depth and Hamill’s just terrible.
Some of Alley’s failings–and some of Hamill’s even–tie directly to Village‘s next big issue. It has enough characters and story for a mini-series, not a ninety-some minute feature. It takes place over nine or ten years, most of those years flying by without enough reestablishment of the ground situation. Major supporting characters disappear, like the actors had to go do something else. Village lacks any narrative ambition and it needs a lot.
The third problem, in terms of Carpenter’s direction, involves that lack of ambition. He never figures out how to make the evil, psychic Aryan children scary. They do nasty things and such, but they aren’t scary because he makes them so obvious. It doesn’t help the kids are bad actors–Lindsey Haun is particularly bad as the ringleader, but Thomas Dekker isn’t much better as the primary male.
Most of the other performances are good. Linda Kozlowski does well as the secondary lead (it oscillates between her and Alley). Karen Kahn, Peter Jason and George ‘Buck’ Flower are all fine. However, Pippa Pearthree is terrible.
Carpenter has occasional good directorial moments, but he’s clearly disinterested, which is too bad. Reeve and Koslowski deserve better.
CREDITS
Directed by John Carpenter; screenplay by David Himmelstein, based on a novel by John Wyndham and a screenplay by Stirling Silliphant, Wolf Rilla and Ronald Kinnoch; director of photography, Gary B. Kibbe; edited by Edward A. Warschilka; music by Carpenter and Dave Davies; production designer, Rodger Maus; produced by Michael Preger and Sandy King; released by Universal Pictures.
Starring Christopher Reeve (Dr. Alan Chaffee), Kirstie Alley (Dr. Susan Verner), Linda Kozlowski (Jill McGowan), Michael Paré (Frank McGowan), Meredith Salenger (Melanie Roberts), Mark Hamill (Reverend George), Pippa Pearthree (Sarah, George’s Wife), Peter Jason (Ben Blum), Constance Forslund (Callie Blum), Karen Kahn (Barbara Chaffee), Thomas Dekker (David McGowan), Lindsey Haun (Mara Chaffee) and George ‘Buck’ Flower (Carlton).
