Helen Reviews The Village Movie

I can't believe critics are softly calling this movie just a disappointment. It is actually going to be a cult favorite of mine as a joke horror film.......With Monty Pythonesque lines like "But, How Do You KNOW They are Magic?" refering to the "magic rocks," and "!!He Must Have Found the SUIT We Hid Under The Floorboards!!" the movie is a compound knot of the absolute silliest plot ever cooked up by a group of characters, as well as the so called writers, directors, whatever, that commited this crime on paper. The absolutely stupid notion that people from a counseling group in the 70s would use an inordinate amount of money to create a completely isolated encampment, but deny themselves medicine without a major rebellion taking place amoungst themselves, is only made more scurrilous by the wickedly vile light this casts on the William Hurt character, who is lying to his darling children and scaring the wits out of them, in a misplaced attempt to keep them "innocent." "All My Children" regularly has used this kind of plot.

The only difference is, "All My Children" pulls it off with infinite more believability. This quite sadistic, extremely controlling character motivation would be a lot more acceptable if the founders of The Village had the background of being rich escapees from an institution for the mentally and criminally insane, and not some well meaning 70s commun-ers who met at a counseling group for grief. Sig Weaver's character just loves to sneak out in the night and silently? and single handedly? skin helpless livestock, and leave it in the grass for the children to find...all in the name of love....right. Back to laughable absurdities... The lines by director M. S. himself, I now call him Midnight Shenanigans for simplicity, playing the Security Chief - complaining that the year "they had to keep planes from flying overhead" or some such nonesense was "the worst year of his life" is really funny..OH, the audience is supposed to say, THATS how they kept up the illusion of the period...very SMART!

Yeah, we are supposed to extrapolate that William Hurt was so powerful he has his own no fly zone over the area...very funny. Next the goofy Deputy Security guy makes the most bumbling attempt in cinematic history to pull off a fast one... he innocently shuffles over to the medicine supply, gropes for some bottles while looking the other way, clink, clink, all ignored by his boss, who told him to keep to himself. Then he asks for a ladder and trys to explain it away, cause he needs to fix the sign...there's a sign? what does it say... No Fly Zone? or The Village...Village Idiots ahead, please do not feed Medicine to the inmates...? Of course none of this causes his boss a bit of alarm, cause he's reading the paper. LOL I've seen better business done by Barney Fife and Andy in Mayberry, and more believable scenarios. What else? Well, poor Joachim looks like he knows this movie is a clunker about the time he has to put on that silly robe, hood and all and wander around in the woods, and take it all seriously.

He just looks like he's thinking out loud...GET ME OUT OF THIS MOVIE!! and indeed not long after he is surprisingly stabbed. Personally, I think he quit. And MS had to scramble and find some plot to save his sinking soap. How about improbabilities - I believe a movie should make you suspend disbelief and accept it on its own terms, here's some of the foibles of The Village in that catagory..........hmmm all those wails and crys made by the Beasties in the woods come from ONE tree that has a BUNCH OF FLUTES hung on it? right. Are flutes banned in the village along with medicine? Gee, why don't the Beasties ever cry out when the wind don't blow? Are we to believe that the founders, elders whatever were all experts in 18th century works, clothing and etc? How did they learn the very specific period dances that everyone was doing at the wedding? In their nefarious, or innocent plotting, however you want to look at it, did they all have to attend period dance classes before founding the village? Yes, and that explains why they didn't have time to study herbalism and medicine...RIGHTTTT.... Here's more....Let's see, Ivy's a great girl, she was a redeemer of the movie no doubt, but are we really supposed to believe her father would send her out blind into the woods alone, in the rain for days????

Ah yes, he's a sadomasochistic control freak, not the kindly guy he appears to be. Are we really supposed to believe she killed the full grown male disguised as a menacing BEASTY by stepping aside from a hole and him falling in? SHE had just fallen in the hole herself, blind as she was, and crawled out of it with relative ease. PLEASE...THIS IS A PLOT POINT? Oh yeah, and my all time favorite line crack up...when William Hurt shows Ivy the Beasty Suit in the shed...He reveals it to her by touch (she is blind) and says..."It's Farce!" The limp Beasty's face was in the camera, and he looked kinda limp and funny, like Goofy dressed up in a big cape for Halloween, and we had to laugh...we pulled long faces and repeated "I'm Farce, and I'm not really a bad guy?" "May the Farce be with you!" "I want you to meet my friends Mockery, Silly and Satire. We are into camping, religious fashion, and bear hugs." The best part of The Village of course was the stunning cinematography...it would be great to just put it on as a scenic meditation with the sound down, and yes, the score was beautiful... but usually I'll just invite friends over, pop the popcorn and HOW....with laughter.

I predict The Village will actually last as a favorite movie rental and party film, cause its genuinely campy...maybe the first truely camp movie of the new Millenium. Don't feel bad Midnight...you can't win em all, and something that makes me and my fiance laugh and forget the news of the day IS a creation worth all the considerable mis-direction you put into this film. Note: The lines quoted from the film are parapphrased, very near but not exact, as I didn't go back and listen line for line when writing this. Sorry also for any mispellings in this...can't be bothered.

Review by Helen Wiliford, West Hollywood, CA