Looking at studio fare today however..........an overpowering "be careful what you wish for" feeling comes over us.
Now we have a steady diet of bloated, 2 & 1/2 hour, multi-million dollar budgeted films with monsters, robots, aliens, spaceships and assorted people in expensive Halloween costumes hurling each other into buildings......
So let us once again heap high praise on the writers and directors of sci-fi/horror films who created wondrous, unforgettable movies without benefit of 150 million dollars, 300 CGI digital artists and a toxic sound design meant to drown out both the dialogue and the background score......
Such as this one......
MGM snapped up rights to John Wyndham's novel "The Midwich Cuckoos" while it was still in galleys........but when it came time to produce the movie in England, the studio forked over a grand total of $200,000 for its budget.
Yes, you heard that amount right. Today, it wouldn't even pay for the "Wonder Woman" metal bracelets on Gal Gadot's wrists......
No matter. Screenwriter Stirling Silliphant and director Wolf Rilla had everything they needed to create an instant classic........a sleepy, bucolic English village, a superb cast and one simple, brilliant special effect that forever implanted the film in the memories of everyone who saw it.......
Re-christened "Village Of The Damned", Silliphant and Rilla efficiently streamlined Wyndham's brilliantly iconic idea of women around the world impregnated via remote control alien transmissions.........and forced to give birth to strangely gifted, golden-haired emotionless children.
The otherworldly kids colonize themselves like a hive of single-minded insects.......and like killer bees or fire ants, they ruthlessly defend themselves when they feel threatened, seizing control of the far weaker minds of us earthlings with a deadly hypnotic glowing of their eyes......(that ace special effect we just mentioned....)
Hollywood had already cautiously dipped its toe into the evil-child genre with 1956's "The Bad Seed"......but to satisfy the Production Code, Warner Brothers had to literally call down the wrath of God on Patty McCormick, and in the epilogue, bring her back from the dead long enough to spank her.
But the silent, bewigged blonde tykes of "Village Of The Damned", led by unnaturally calm Martin Stephens, were way more disturbing and unsettling in their creepy unity than Patty could ever achieve with her rants and tantrums. These kids didn't have to get mad.......all they needed to
do was stare at you to get even......
Even within the limited space of its brief 77 minutes, the film takes its time to to carefully build up the suspense and terror. The current crop of puffed-up, pretentious "artistes" who force audiences to sit through punishing, bloated running times should be forced to sit down and study the amazing economy of this film and its editing.
For this particular village, the BQ's eyes always glow bright with 5 stars (*****), a FIND OF FINDS. For these crisp, October, pre-Halloween days, you couldn't ask for more perfect viewing.....remember to...."beware the stare!"
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