CHILDREN OF THE DAMNED (1964)

 

(Director: Anton Leader, billed as Anton M. Leader. Screenwriter: John Briley.)

Storyline

Six ultra-intelligent children with a disturbing psychic bond and powers are experimented upon by the British military. This drives the dangerously powerful sextet to flee to a church and warn the military to leave them be, lest they unleash their wrath on the world.

Review

CHILDREN is a sequel to VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED (1960) in name only─it’s more of an alternate-take/not-quite-remake work that eschews VILLAGE’s village/mass passing-out/pregnancy set-up and cuts straight to the already-born children with unsettling (at best), terrifying (at worst) powers. The setting has been changed as well, most of CHILDREN’s action happening in dark-and-grimy London, England.

There is a lot to like about CHILDREN: its waste-no-time set-up scenes and tight writing; its well-sketched, well-acted characters, including actor Clive Powell, who appeared in VILLAGE and again plays a differently named boy-leader of the alien children; its evocative score (composed by Ron Goodwin, who also worked on VILLAGE) and its dark, atmospheric setting. Other notable names attached to this film are Ian Hendry (DAMIEN: OMEN II, 1978), who played Dr. Tom Llewellyn, and an uncredited Leo McKern, who played "Inspector" (an uncredited McKern also played Carl Bugenhagen in THE OMEN, 1976, and DAMIEN: OMEN II).

CHILDREN does not cover any new ground story-wise, and if it were a sequel to VILLAGE, it would be a good but unnecessary one. And its church-siege scenes with the six kids─who want to be left alone─run long, ending the film on a familiar and almost whew-the-film’s-finally-over note.

Overall, this is a good movie. Just don’t confuse it for a VILLAGE sequel. CHILDREN inspired heavy metal band Iron Maiden to write the song "Children of the Damned" for its 1982 album THE NUMBER OF THE BEAST.

VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED (1960)

 

(Director/co-screenwriter: Wolf Rilla. Co-screenwriters: Stirling Silliphant, Ronald Kinnoch.)

Storyline:

Blond children with glowing eyes appear in Midwich, an English village, after a freak incident causes its adult inhabitants to briefly pass out and its women to wake up pregnant.

 

Review

Based on John Wyndam’s 1957 science fiction novel THE MIDWICH CUCKOOS, VILLAGE may be one of something rare: a perfect film, one that ably mixes horror and science fiction, like John Carpenter’s 1982 masterpiece, THE THING. Like THING, VILLAGE is tightly shot, visually exciting, every line of dialogue matters, its pacing never lags (while allowing its excellent actors, among them George Sanders and Michael Gwynn, to give their roles story-enhancing quirks), its score (courtesy of Ron Goodwin) is striking as is its ending─as striking as the iconic, eerie image of the children’s glowing eyes (brought about by superimposing a negative image of their eyes on their pupils when their powers were used). Unlike THING, there is no gore, making this a great introducing-the-kids-to-science-fiction-horror movie. Followed by the good but unnecessary non-sequel CHILDREN OF THE DAMNED (1964, also featuring Clive Powell as a spooky child) and a John Carpenter-helmed 1995 remake of VILLAGE.