Village Of The Damned

In terms of horror remakes, I don't think this deserves a lot of hate.

Now I will admit I've only seen the first 20 minutes of Children Of The Damned awhile ago, so I can't properly compare notes so we are discussing the merits of this movie alone. I quite liked it, even though I hear tale John was doing the movie out of obligation to the studio and not because of his own passion and creativity, and even the shooting was a disaster with residents of the town harassing the film crew throughout, so with all that negativity in mind the production is pretty solid. From the brief instances of knowledge considering the original the plot isn't much different, a mass blackout in a small town leads to the birth of several children with mind controlling abilities causing havoc and despair as the parents try to figure out a way to resolve the situation. It's a fascinating plot regardless of decade, and it didn't take long for me to get into it and to know how it was going to end. I will however state a supreme amount of enjoyability in this movie goes to the fact that Christopher Reeve and Mark Hamill are in this movie, though I will not detest anyone's acting in this movie. I know child actors get a lot of flak because they can't emote properly but here, it works entirely to the advantage of these kids and they all do brilliant work even though only two of them get any spotlight. It breaks my heart constantly seeing Christopher in this, being this was the last movie he made before his accident and I simply love that man more than I could say. Coincidentally enough the movie came out one day after I was born, to mixed reviews and a less than average box office. But like I said it genuinely isn't that bad! The cast does good work with passion, the production budget is lower but still does a lot with what it has to do, I really digged the effect on the eyes implementing some basic CGI to good effect, the story moves at a good pace and if anything it makes me want to finish the original to compare notes. Boy howdy though this was some 90s shit man, just little things that I noticed that really screamed the decade at me. Kirstie Alley is a damn chimney stack in this, smoking nonstop even in a hospital, yeah remember when that was okay? Seeing a classroom with a bulky TV in the back, that brought back some memories and a half. I'm not sure what the explanation is for the children in the first film but we flat out get X-Files up in here with an alien in a glass jar, I was almost expecting David Duchovny to make a surprise cameo. It's by no means a great film but you can have a good time with it, and really anybody could have directed it despite Carpenter having his name on it, but it's decent. 2.5 stars, 7/10, time to make the trip back to Haddonfield tomorrow.