Village of the Damned

Director: Wolf Rilla

1960 / 77min / 35mm

Two months after the residents of the sleepy British hamlet of Midwich inexplicably fall unconscious, all of the town’s women of childbearing age discover themselves to be pregnant, eventually giving birth to a crop of eerily similar-looking towheaded children of uncertain origin, impeccably behaved and unnervingly precocious once they arrive at primary school age… and boasting telepathic powers that allow them to ruthlessly rule over their terrified “parents.” Adapted from John Wyndham’s 1957 novel The Midwich Cuckoos, Rilla’s ingeniously streamlined stealth invasion chiller gained a fervent cult, spawning a 1964 sequel and a 1995 remake by admirer John Carpenter.