Wear not the bad colour — for it angers them! Do not go into the woods — for that is where they live. Reveal not the surprise ending — for it is completely rubbish!
The Village is an absurd and badly plotted thriller. It has sent director M Night Shyamalan’s reputation south like dotcom stock, leaving those of us who invested massively after his breakthrough movies The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable with a barrowload of worthless shares on our hands. Shyamalan had such a sensational impact with those two sinuous, elegant movies, becoming the Chubby Checker of Hollywood, the king of the twist, and cut an auteurist dash by writing, producing, directing and making a sly, Hitchcockian cameo in each. (Perhaps only Alejandro Amenabar or Robert Rodriguez do more, by actually composing the music as well.) Then came the disappointing Signs, his film about — ooo-er! — corn circles, probably the least scary subject in the world.
Now this. It’s a period-costume chiller about a remote village community surrounded by a dark and mysterious forest in which horrifying creatures are said to live. The villagers are ruled over by a committee of religious elders including William Hurt, Brendan Gleeson and Sigourney Weaver, who have evidently brokered a deal with the woodland beasties. As long as no human ventures out into their domain, no monsters will come into the village.
The humans must suppress all signs of the colour red, for it sends the forest creatures into a murderous rage. But after the tragic death of a child, intense young villager Lucius (Joaquin Phoenix) tells the elders that he wants to journey through the forest to reach the rumoured ”towns” beyond, where they have modern amenities that might have saved the infant. The elders forbid it, but Lucius won’t be told.
Shyamalan certainly returns to the twisty style, which he appeared to have abandoned in Signs. There’s a medium-sized twist half-way through, then a sort of mini-counter-twist where the first twist seems to be cancelled out, and then for the finale a mega-twist so massive it’s intended to leave you with whiplash, a neck-brace and many months of physiotherapy. But in each case the twist is telegraphed with a feeble explanation that dulls the impact — and this final twist just doesn’t work in the first place.
This paranoid community has something of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. It’s the normal life of the place that is creepily intriguing. It is like witnessing the home life of a giant, dysfunctional family, or perhaps one half of the family, the half that lives out of the shadows. Within this half, there are loves, and plots and intrigues.
But from here it’s all downhill. The forest itself becomes a kind of sub-Blair Witch location, but fails to learn that movie’s lesson: that the creatures are only scary when you don’t see them. — Â