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| Beware Their Stare! |
CHILDREN OF THE DAMNED (1964). Director: Anton Leader.
Colorized.
Psychologist Dr. Tom Llewellyn (Ian Hendry) and geneticist Dr. David Neville (Alan Badel) are amazed at the incredible intelligence of a young boy named Paul (Clive Powell). They discover that Paul is only one of a half dozen special and unemotional children from around the world, all of whom have come to London for testing. In each case the mother is unstable and there is no sign of a father. Eventually the telepathic children -- what one knows they all know -- band together, holing up in an abandoned church, and use their mind-control powers to kill anyone they perceive as a threat. Although at first the children are seen as a separate species, it is later theorized that they are about a million years ahead of ordinary humans in development. Tom and David literally come to blows arguing about the children, with David convinced they are a menace that must be destroyed and Tom hoping to fully communicate with them. It is a question who will be decimated first: the children, or the forces who come to kill them.
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| Ian Hendry and Alan Badel |
Children of the Damned is not really a sequel to
Village of the Damned, but a completely different movie that uses some of the same concepts of the original picture while creating many of its own. In
Village the children were essentially the vanguard of an alien invasion, but there's absolutely no mention of extraterrestrials in
Children. Instead these six urchins are mutants with special powers but apparently no special purpose. However, they are not about to lay down and die, building a weapon utilizing the vibratory power of an organ to destroy the minds of armed invaders in the church in a very unnerving sequence. Another good sequence is a triple murder by three men who are under mind-control, and the entire climax, a breathlessly edited standoff between the military and the children that ends in utter disaster.
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| The kids and Barbara Ferris |
Unfortunately,
Children of the Damned has perhaps too
many ideas percolating in its screenplay by John Briley. There's the carry over from
Village with its dichotomy of little monsters with sweet, angelic faces, the need for mankind to protect itself versus the loathsome notion of killing
children. The church setting, and especially the resurrection of one of the children after being shot, summons up thoughts of religious martyrdom and the like, even the Second Coming. The children seem to be praying at one point but we don't know to whom. One critic felt that Hendry and Badel are playing a gay couple, and the latter's hostile attitude toward the children is because Hendry seems to be drawing closer to Paul's aunt, Susan (Barbara Ferris), but I think this is a mighty big stretch.
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| Clive Powell as Paul |
The acting in the film is generally excellent, with especially nice work from Sheila Allen as the neurotic virgin mother of Paul. Alfred Burke is Colin Webster, a government man who decides to insert himself into the situation. Bessie Love is briefly seen as the grandmother of one of the children. Hendry and Badel play with real conviction, and Ferris manages to convey some anguish and confusion as the woman who spends half her time being controlled by her nephew and the others. One has to say that this film, including its predecessor and the novel, "Midwich Cuckoos" upon which it was derived, were highly influential: Stephen King's "Carrie," John Farris' "The Furies," and Stan Lee and Jack Kirby's X-Men all come to mind.
Verdict: Slow in spots, much too obtuse and muddled, but with an undeniably effective and powerful climax. **3/4.
