Although universally thought of as a classic, today it is often overlooked and forgotten about in favor of other classic 60s horror flicks like Night Of The Living Dead (1968) or other classic Sci-Fis like Invasion of The Body Snatchers(1956), but this film should still be just as talked about and beloved as it once was for it holds up remarkably well almost 55 years later. Imagine The Omen (1976) except instead of one evil kid running around destroying things with his mind, you get 12 of them in this movie. The children are born when (after a mysterious sleeping spell overtakes a whole town) all the women in a town become pregnant. Oscar winning actor George Sanders (who is known for his cold calculative and often slimy characters, to which this film's no exception) does a wonderful job as the scientist who wants to keep the children alive for the sake of studying even after they begin to commit unspeakable crimes. The special effects done to the children's eyes are still spooky even by today's standards. The film also builds marvelously until the very end (some older films can really lag, but this is well paced for the time it was made). The film does have at least one sequel (Children of The Damned, which is also acclaimed, and Iron Maiden did a saong of the same name about that film) and the honor of being remade 35 years later by horror legend John Carpenter, but from what I have read there seems to be no doubt that the original is the best. I give it a 5/5, and you can view the trailer below:
I always enjoy Michael Crichton's films, he's one of my favorite sci-fi writers, and this film is written and directed by him. This movie stars Albert Finney (Big Fish, Murder on the Orient Express) and academy award winner James Coburn (The Great Escape, Monsters Inc.). The film is a futuristic dystopian thriller (like a lot of Crichton's work), where a plastic surgeon (Finney) learns that the last four patients he operated on have all died mysteriously, so tries to find a connection btween the deaths, and it leads him to a shady corporation. This film deals with such
themes as the media's concept of what the perfect woman looks like, and some women's obsession with wanting to look perfect. The film also deals with the concept of computers eventually replacing people (in this film they do so just in TV commercials), hypnotism through electronic signals sent out through commercials, and a gun that causes "invisibility" with a seemingly plausible explanation (something to do with the gun shooting beams of light that are part of the light/color spectrum that we humans can't see, that block certain
receptors in your eyes for a short period of time). There is a great scene where Finney gets beat up by an invisible assailant. The film is a really great thriller with great acting, music, special effects and is marvelously well written and so believable (like all of Crichtons work) that part of it has become actuality today.The only thing that might bother people is that the aspect of the story where a computer can make a replica of a person, or measure one's exact eye movements has already come true, so that may make the film seem dated to some, but to me it's a reminder of how crazy the technology we have nowadays, and that maybe the invisibility and hypnosis aspects of the story aren't too far away from becoming reality. I give the film a 5/5 and highly recommend it. You can find the full movie on youtube here, and the trailer is below:
