VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED (1960) **1/2 Strange looking, evil, self-centered, undisciplined, arrogant, law breaking, contemptuous, over-educated children preoccupied with ESP and UFOs oppress their kind, well-meaning but naive, hard working and ultimately better, parents. According to some sect of snake eaters somewhere south of Jackson, Mississippi it took only eight years for the poison to come down out of the screen and onto the streets of Berkeley, Paris, Berlin, Rome, and Mexico City. The story is not intricate, but involves serious thoughts. The black and white milieu, small English town (we all know how strange those can get), and Cold War comparisons of how the Russians dealt with their mutant offspring (as they would deal with Czechoslovakian protesters eight years later, for example) all work to good advantage. Wolf Rilla keeps a few director's trick cards up his sleeve, laying them out slowly but obviously when he knows they're appropriate (the brick wall is my favorite).
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