Eighth Annual FMS Scarelicious October Movie Series: #17 Village of the Damned (1995)

When I first started John Carpenter's 1995 remake (of 1960's) Village of the Damned, I was super-excited:  John Carpenter! Christopher Reeve! Mark Hamill! Kristie Alley!  And then there was some mid-90s/rudimentary CGI fog and sinister whispering sweeping across a northern California coastal town - it was going to be awesome!

Plot in a nutshell:  the tiny town of Midwich, California (population: 2,000; elevation: 33 feet above sea level (although those cliffs are certainly higher than 33 feet)) is a happy place until a weird wave of sinister whispering flows over the town, during its school fair no less.  Everyone in town - people, dogs, cows, parakeets - pass out where they are; one dude has the misfortune to faint onto his gas grill, rendering him as crispy as his hot dogs.  Concerned law enforcement and scientific types hover outside the town line until six hours later when everyone wakes up.  Most are none the worst for wear, other than the grill guy and the few who died in car crashes when they passed out whilst driving.  However, ten women mysteriously catch pregnant (including one high school "virgin" and one lady whose husband has been out of town for the last year).  The babies are all born on the same day (the virgin's baby is stillborn and Kirstie Alley's epidemiologist spirits the tiny corpse away before anyone can see it).  Also, the babies' DNA indicate that they are genetic siblings and as the years pass, these nine platinum blond kids get eviller and eviller.  They use mind control to force people to do things - harm themselves, commit suicide - until the townsfolk are cowed.  One of them, David (a baby Thomas Dekker who has the longest eyelashes ever) is not as mean as the rest, exhibiting some empathy for the scared and sad adults around him.  The government at first studies the evil children to see if they can perhaps be weaponized, but these tiny terrors cannot be controlled.

I give this version of Village of the Damned a solid meh.  It just doesn't feel like a John Carpenter movie:  the Halloweens, The Fog, The Thing (omg I love The Thing), Escape from New York, They Live, Christine ... all far and away better than this flick.  Reviews I read unequivocally prefer the original version.  The acting is decent, Christopher Reeve is very heroic and the idea is great.  It just doesn't seem to be Carpenter's strongest work.