Subj : Village of the Damned
To   : ALL
From : Mike Powell
Date : Mon Nov 27 2023 11:37 am

The other day I had the opportunity to watch Village of the Damned, and the
sequel Children of the Damned, for the first time.

Both were very interesting.  I prefered the original to the sequel.  The
original premise is that there is some "peculiar event" that puts the
inhabitants of a particular area into a state of syspended animation where
they all appear dead.  Anyone who enters the area after the initial event
is also affected.

Once everyone comes to, they realize that time continued to move on without
them.  They also realize that many of the fertile women of the village have
become pregnant, and that this single English village is not the only
village in the world where a similar event happened at the same time.

The children grow quickly and appear to be mentally gifted well beyond
their years.  They also start showing signs of additional powers that they
use maliciously, threatening their fellow villagers.

I won't give up how it ends, but it is a good sci-fi/suspense flick.

The sequel starts off with individual children in different countries who,
like the kids in the original movie, are gifted beyond their years.  The UN
gets involved and initially tries to unite the children.  However, like in
the original movie, they too are soon identified as being a potential
threat that must be dealt with.

The sequel was also suspenseful, but I didn't think it was as good as the
first.  Although it was sci-fi, it seemed to spend more effort on the
message... that humans don't react well when exposed to people who are
different.

I also could not get over the fact that, although this is a sequel and
although the events took place after the events in the first, that no one
in the second seemed to be familar with said events in the first.  They did
try to keep it hush-hush from the general public in the first movie, but
the military in at least two of the involved countries, and at least some
in the science community, were certainly aware.

Waiting for someone to speak up and say "hey, remember when..." and then
using that knowledge to apply to the current situation may have kept me from
enjoying the sequel as much.

Mike


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