Village of the Damned (1960)

Village of the Damned ​is a 1960 British science fiction horror film directed by German director Wolf Rilla. The film adapted the novel The Midwich Cuckoos ​(1957) by John Wyndham. The lead role of Professor Gordon Zellaby was played by George Sanders.

A sequel, ​Children of the Damned ​(1964), followed, as did a remake, also called Village of the Damned ​(1995).

Plot
The inhabitants of the British village of Midwich suddenly all fall unconscious, as does anyone entering the village. The military establishes a cordon around Midwich. After approximately four hours, the villagers regain consciousness, and all are apparently unaffected while the government can enter the village without problems. One of its inhabitants is Professor Gordon Zullaby.

Two months later, after this event, all women and girls of child-bearing age in the affected area are discovered to be pregnant. In time the extraordinary nature of the pregnancies is also discovered, with seven-month fetuses appearing after only five months. Finally all the women of the village give birth on the same day. Additionally all the born children are similar in their appearance.

Three years later, Professor Zellaby, whose wife Anthea gave birth to one of the children they now call David, attends a meeting with British Intelligence to discuss the children. There he learns Midwich was not the only place affected; follow-up investigations have revealed, similar events happened in other places of the world where the children were instantaneously killed by the inhabitans of those places.

In the meantime these strange children have shown extreme intelligence. They also dress impeccably, always walk as a group, speak in an adult manner, and behave maturely, but they also show no conscience or love. Additionally they show a coldness to others, causing the villagers to fear and be repulsed by them. Finally the children also read minds and force people to do things against their will by using their minds. In their coldness they even harm and kill villagers that way.

Zellaby is at first eager to work with them, trying to teach them while hoping to learn more about them with the government´s approval. For that purpose the children are placed in a separate building where they will learn and live. While the children continue to exert their will, Zellaby learns the Soviet government has used an atomic bomb to destroy the sole remaining alternate village containing their own spawn of mutant children.

Zellaby compares the children's resistance to reasoning with a brick wall and uses this motif as self-protection against their mind reading after the children's inhuman nature becomes clear to him in time. In order to stop them he finally takes a hidden time-bomb to a final session with the children who now prepare to go to other places in order to create more colonies of their own on Earth.

There he blocks their awareness of the bomb by visualizing a brick wall. His "son" David, who suspects him, tries to scan his mind and shows an emotion (astonishment) for the first time when he realises he is effectively blocking them this way. The children then all try to break down Zellaby's mental wall together, but he successfully resists long enough so that they discover the truth only a moment before the bomb detonates, which occurs successfully.

The explosion consumes the building in flames and kills them all while Zellaby's wife, who has realised too late what he was up to when he said to a friend of his he should take care of her before leaving her, has to witness it. It leaves her desolated because of her husband´s death.

Cast

 * George Sanders as Gordon Zellaby
 * Barbara Shelley as Anthea Zellaby
 * Martin Stephens as David Zellaby
 * Michael Gwynn as Alan Bernard
 * Laurence Naismith as Doctor Willers
 * Richard Warner as Harrington
 * Jenny Laird as Mrs. Harrington
 * Sarah Long as Evelyn Harrington

Production
The film rights to the novel were bought by MGM in June 1957, prior to its publication. At first they thought about producing it in America, but the resistance of certain religious groups there regarding the concept of sinister virgin birth in the film forced MGM to film it in their subsidiary studios in Great Britain.

There the film was shot in Letchmore Heath, about 12 km north of London.

Reception
The movie became a box office success and, in time, even became a classic in the film category science fiction horror.