Better keep an eye on the kids

Title - Village of the damned (1960)
Language - English
Genre - Horror

Characters:

Alan Bernard - an army man friends of the Zellaby’s

Gordon Zellaby - a professor

Anthea zellaby - Gordon's Wife

David Zellaby - Gordon’s son & leader of the ‘others’

Village of the damned is a film based upon ‘The Midwich Cuckoos’ by John Wyndham which has also been the inspiration for Stephen King’s ‘Under the Dome’.

The main theme of ‘Village of the Damned’ seems to be paranoia.  The film is set in the small English village of Midwich which seems to be out in the middle of the countryside.  The army are nearby practicing maneuvers and it is is hinted a few times in the film  (and more in the book) the the villagers are suspicious of what they are actually doing.  Every living thing passes out in Midwich village an event that some of the villager think was caused by the army testing some kind of new weapon but this is treated as more of an irritation.  The feeling of paranoia really starts when the women of Midwich begin finding out that they are pregnant, to begin with the connection with the pregnancies and the previous event are not noticed and so many of the men start thinking that their wives have been cheating on them and, as Midwich is only a small village there is suspicion around.  Once the link has been found and it is revealed that all the women are pregnant the source of the paranoia is shift to the unborn children and village almost becomes divided by gender, the women are doing their best to keep their families together but we see that the men are reacting with fear towards them.  This is one of the scenes that makes ‘Village of the Damned’ an interesting film because it does not portray the women as weak victims or as eye candy, it shows that they are all different characters who are just trying to cope with the situation they find themselves in.

The mood improves slightly when the children are born and the seem to be normal but the fears soon return when the children s true nature is revealed.  The villagers try to take control of the children  but soon find that even the army is powerless and that other countries have taken very drastic action to solve the problem.

The question that is raised is should the villagers even try to force the children to follow the same rules as them.  They are obviously a different creature to the villagers and most of what they do is to defend themselves, the children know that, for the most part  they are superior to the rest of the villages but they do seem to know that they are making some of the villagers uncomfortable.  In one scene we see that the children are aware that they are making the shop owners nervous and they say that they will arrange someone else.  Apart from the facts that the children over react to the perceived threats they do seem to be trying to keep themselves to themselves and this would mean that the real bad guys are the villagers who are reacting mainly from fear.

The Village of the Damned is a good film, relying more on atmosphere than on scares and jumps and raises a few good questions.

She's not a barbie girl in a vampires world

Title - Killer Barbies (aka Killer Barbys & Vampire Killer Barbys)
Language - English Dub (original Spanish)
Genre - horror, Vampire

Characters:

Mario - Band member

Flavia - Band Member

Rafa - Band Member

Silvia - Band Member lead singer

Billy - Band Member

Baltasar -  mad Monk

Arkan - the carer/lover of Condesa

Condesa - an ancient countess/singer

Pipa - A Dwarf

Pipo - A Dwarf

The Killer Barbies are a Spanish Rock Punk band and this was their first film.  As far as i can tell there is one other.

At first Killer Barbies struck me as quite a generic vampire/slasher film in most.  We have a group of young adults, in this case the members of the Killer Barbies, who are traveling  somewhere.  They go down the wrong road which is a dirt track and then come off the road, damaging their van.  They then meet a strange man who invites them to spend the night in his castle which is, of course inhabited by a vampire.  The group split up, some go to the castle and two stay behind in the van.  It’s so standard that i could even tell you who first people were to get killed and, if you’d seen any other slasher films it wouldn't be a spoiler.  I won’t,  just in case it’s your first horror film.

It’s this style that does lead to some of the strangeness of the film though.  They are obviously trying for the gothic feel of a vampire film but some things are slightly off.  The castle is not what you’d assume.  Instead of a gothic grey stoned building with towers and a portcullis we have a square whitish building which is referred to in the film as looking like a convent or prison.  Keeping with the gothic nature of the film we are told that the castle/convent is haunted by a mad monk whose origin story sounded like something take from ‘a nightmare on elm street’ but the problem was it was hard to tell which character was meant to be the monk, the way he told the tale I first thought it was Arkan but i think it was supposed to be Baltasar.

Some of the aspects of the house also seemed a bit unnecessary, for instance there is a ‘Chess Room’, a room with a black & white tiled floor and a couple of chess pieces and for some reason a crib with a creepy baby doll in it. I know they are probably trying to set a creepy scene but the room just seems out of place in the castle and the film.

The characters are an interesting mix.  First off we have the killer Barbie’s (or Killer Barbys depending on what version of the film you have) they are a group of late teens (silvia gives her age as 19) who would fit in with any slasher.

Then there is Arkan when i first saw him I assumed he was our Van- Helsing type but no he’s the one who feeds the vampire.  Which makes Balthasar seem out of place, he is our Igor/Renfield or slasher and he would be better served without Arkan who seems to be there to for fill a romantic roll that never actually appears.  Then we have Pipa & Pipo to twin (I think) dwarfs who are Balthasar’s assistance and possibly meant as comic relief.

The we have Condesa our vampire.  It’s never said that she is undead and she is never actually referred to as a vampire.  She is more of an Elisabeth Bathory character who needs blood to stay young although for some one who claims to be  over a hundred years old she does seem to lack any sense of self preservation.

If you add all of this to film that doesn't seem to know if it’s night or day,  a smoke machine that doesn’t seem powerful enough to reach all of the sets, a film that had to change the spelling in its title due a certain toy manufacturer complaining and dubbing the just doesn't seem right (in the version i had.  The film should have been Spanish and I could only get a dubbed version) and you would expect a mess but, in true B movie style Killer Barbies works. As you’d expect in slasher/vampire film the gore and dead body effects are good, the story makes enough sense, the sex fits the narrative (& there's quite a bit) and the acting to just the right side of naff and over the top.  This is all helped along by half decent characters, the female leads are not the normal helpless type that are there just to scream and die, although one does end up running through the woods in nothing except silver knee high boots.

If you have a spare couple of hours and want something that’s not too taxing give give Killer Barbies a watch but only if you're not offended by nudity, both male and female.

Mad Max in the court of King Aurther

Title - Doomsday
Language - English
Genre- sci-Fi

Characters:

Eden Sinclair - A DDS agent, Survivor from Scotland and our hero

Kane - a Doctor trapped in Scotland who may have the cure

Sol - leader of the punks

Cally - a helpful girl

25 years ago a new virus appeared in Scotland. Called the Reaper virus It could not be cured so Scotland was walled off and the population were left to die.  3 years ago evidence of survivors were found but the government told no one and did nothing.  Now the reaper virus has been found in London, in an attempt to stop the virus a team is sent to Scotland to try to find a cure.

I remember that after watching this for the first time i had a ‘what have i just seen’ moment as Doomsday seems to be many films in one. It starts as a quite violent plague movie  as we see the population of Scotland trying to escape their fate, when a Reaper virus victim is spotted all hell breaks loose as the army open fire  and evacuate the country.  The violence then continues as we jump 25 years and the film becomes a spy movie which introduces us to DDS agent Sinclair.

The film changes pace when Sinclair and her team re enter Scotland.  We are shown plenty of shots of dead bodies and, when this is combined with the virus the film takes on the feel of zombie movie, similar to ‘28 days later’.  Sinclair and her team look like something out of ‘Aliens’ and, given the atmosphere the viewer is always expecting something horrible to jump out at them and this Zombie style is continued whilst the team look for Doctor Kane in his old hospital, the vibe is continued as they find a lone girl.

When the enemy is revealed the feel of the film changes again. Now we are in a post apocalyptic film filled with cannibalistic punks who ride motorbikes and drive cars & buses covered in spikes which will always bring ‘Mad Max’ to mind.  We stay in this world for a bit and the film seems to have found it’s style but no Sinclair and her team escape Sol with the help of Cally who says she can help them find Kane.

So our heroes jump on a train and cut through a mountain via an old military storage unit and are attacked by a man on horseback in a suit of medieval armour, he is basicly the black knight.  They are taken to Kane who is ruling over his own bit of Scotland like a medieval king.  Then we have an escape using a Bentley car which leads us to (great) car chase back through mad Max land.

As well as all this there is also a political angle with two parties playing for power and trying to take control of the rest of the U.K..

If this much was thrown into most movies they normally turn into a mess there are even some movies that can’t cope with one genre if they try to put too many tropes into it but Doomsday works.  I think it is because it just over the top enough so it can’t always be taken too seriously but doesn’t descend into farce.  The action is so over the  top that at one point one of the punk’s cars hits a dead body and then bursts into flames.

There are a few inconsistencies relating to the passage of time, the punks still have fresh cans of lager  but no one seems to be making them.  The punks are cannibals due to the lack of food but there is an overpopulation of cows and all knowledge of modern technology seems to have disappeared in Kain’s kingdom but even these don’t detract from the film.

Over all Doomsday is a great, over the top romp that pays homage to number of great films, there's even a cameo by William Wallis.