Discuss "The Village" for those who have seen it! SPOILERS HERE

[Stingy Jack]

I just got back from a viewing of Shyamalan's The Village. Suffice it to say, I was VERY disappointed. I am going to discuss my thoughts on the movie here, and to do that, I need to talk about the plot twists. So, if you haven't seen the film, don't read any further if you don't want to know what happens.



First of all, the film isn't really that bad. Taken objectively, it is actually pretty good .... for what it is. However, for us die-hard horror fans who wanted something truly scary and atmospheric, we were cheated. The Village advertises itself as a horror movie ... but it is not. It is not a horror movie at all. For one, the monsters in the woods aren't even real! I thought that they would be, seeing as in his other films, the supernatural elements turned out to be real. But not in this one. Oh no. And not only are they not real, but you learn that they aren't real halfway through the movie! So, any scares that the film tries to produce after this fact is revealed all fall flat.

Plus, the unique "twist" at the end was pretty predictable. I knew that "the towns" on the other side of the woods were actually modern day cities when the woman told Ivy that her sister "was killed in an alley." You just don't have alleys in nineteenth century villages! So, I wasn't surprised by the ending at all.

But, let's just say that we don't watch The Village with the hopes of seeing a good, scary movie. Let's say we just go into the theater, not expecting anything. Only by doing this will you enjoy the movie. It does have it's saving graces. It is actually an interesting and thought-provoking story .... albeit, not a horror tale. The cinematography and music are all very well done, and add scores to the creepiness that the film does manage to produce at first. The acting seems a little odd and forced ... but this is because the characters who inhabit the village are acting. At least, the ones who first arrived there are. They are actually regular people from our time who have suffered injustices to the point that they wanted to create a place that preserves innocence. And so, they made the village. Well, you saw the movie ... you know the plot. It only makes sense that these regular people would have a hard time speaking the way they do, what with the clipped consonants and absence of contractions.

So, as a movie with no ties to any particular genre (other than, perhaps, thriller), The Village was fun to watch the first time ... but unworthy of a second viewing.

As a horror film ... it TOTALLY SUCKS! I went in there hoping for at least a few thrills, and got absolutely none. And Shyamalan slapped me in the face when I learned that there was really nothing to be scared of at all. Just villagers running about in costumes. I hate that man now. I really do.

[newb]

I'm not gonna read this because I plan on seeing this next week on my vacation. After I do I shall respond. Stingy...you still have a DVD coming if you want it. If not I understand. I would be a little leary giving out my address to some strange dude on the internet.







but I can assure you....I am quite harmless.

[mothermold]

what a full bag of shit!!!i heard he rewrote the ending.i have yet to see this movie(as far as i'm concerned the magic died when i found out santa claws was a fake...it's been a rough 2 years!)but i'll think i'll wait for the dvd.thanks for the heads up!! :D

[Stingy Jack]

Originally posted by newb
I'm not gonna read this because I plan on seeing this next week on my vacation. After I do I shall respond. Stingy...you still have a DVD coming if you want it. If not I understand. I would be a little leary giving out my address to some strange dude on the internet.







but I can assure you....I am quite harmless.

Acutally, I have no problem giving out my mailing address to you. I do have a problem asking you to burn one of your DVDs, though, and spend money mailing it to me. :)

[Hate_Breeder]

Originally posted by MD2
I still wanna know who painted the red slash on my front door, DAMNIT!!!!!

Fess up ya weiner.:D

:eek: I think hes on to me................play it cool :)

[newb]

Originally posted by Stingy Jack
Acutally, I have no problem giving out my mailing address to you. I do have a problem asking you to burn one of your DVDs, though, and spend money mailing it to me. :)

Its no problem at all. I have a ton of blanks and like I said....I'm a Shipping Mgr. So the mailing process [ be it UPS or USPS ] is no problem.

[WaR38]

Deffently agree with this matter. It was a tottal jip. I wanted to see people killed blood and guts and viens in my teeth. If I wanted to see a love story I would have gone to see "The Notebook" or something. The only reason that I am glad I saw it was because it was actually filmed in my town. This world needs more horror movies. I'm sick of looking at the list of movies at the theaters and not seeing anything worth watching.

[Dr.Kelvinstein]

Thus far The Village is easily the worst film of the year. I mean we all know what to expect from fodder like White Chicks and Anchor Man, but there's no excuse for something this bad to be passed off on the unsuspecting public. Mr. Shyamalan is a somewhat talented director, at least visually. He knows how to build dread and suspense with minimalist backgrounds and slightly askew angles, and by letting conversations play themselves out in strangely set-up two-shots. But that's as far as it goes, and after three suspense movies even his style is predictable.

As a screenwriter, he is simply horrible. His dialogue is atrocious (actually laughable in The Village, like he aped the Bronte sisters), and his plots are simply gimmicks. He should be working in a thirty-minute TV format, not film. A plot twist does not make a movie.

In The Village he apparantly doesn't even understand simple narrative logic. You can't reveal that the monsters are fake and then throw one on the screen to scare us. Even Scooby isn't scared after he unmasks the baddie.

The Village also has the bigget gimmick scare in film history---the blind girl falls down and the music imitates a gunshot. Everyone in the theater jumped, not realizing it was the jarring music cue and not the tumble that hooked them. Ridiculous. You could play the same music cue during any scene in White Chicks and get the same response.

The end was so predictable I was angry. I hate movies when what you expected from the first five minutes in actually turns out to be true. And I would have known that the monsters were bogus, but people concerned with the making of the film have been doing interviews and saying that the monsters are real (even in this month's Fangoria). Put simply, the plot is so flimsy and the tiwist so predictable that the cast and crew are actually lying in a pathetic attempt to mislead the viewer. At least they tried, which seems to be more than m Night Shyamalan did.

[Arioch]

Damn Dr.Kelvin, its good to see you around again....i always enjoyed your reviews of movies as you always know what your talking about...

Good to see you around and about on the board these days....

[Dr.Kelvinstein]

Thanks for the welcome, Arioch. It's fun to be back...I forgot how cool it was talking about my great passion...fright flicks.