Sure, it looks creepy, but it’s not.
Shame, shame on you, M. Night Shyamalanshanana. First, you put out a winner of a movie like The Sixth Sense (which, honestly, really DID have a twist ending), follow it up with Unbreakable, shove the piece of crap Signs in our faces, and then, THEN, have the AUDACITY to plaster your name all over The Village. Tsk tsk tsk. For this, I am writing my entire review in “the bad color”. I knew this movie was going to be bad. Not only because it was about Amishy people, but also because M.Night has just flat out screwed me over on his last few movies. Thank God I only wasted $3 bucks on this one.
His yellow poncho will protect him from all things big, fake and boring!
General premise: Prudish people living a village, eeeeevil monsters that they have made a pact with live in the forest outside. The color red attracts the evil monsters, so they wear yellow. Evil monsters breach the borders of the village and kill dogs and small animals. They even go as far as to…*gasp!* paint the doors on the houses! Blind girl Ivy and brooding man Lucius hook up, and Ivy’s crazy best friend tries to kill Lucius. They need medicine from the nearby towns of doom, so they send Ivy to get it. Yes, the blind girl. In the woods. TO THE CITY. Anyway, plots twists occur, but they were predictable from about halfway through the movie, so pfffft.
Don’t want spoilers? Stop reading here, because now I’m going to give you the lowdown on the fine details of the movie.
It’s the newest craze in Amish gaming!
The setting is supposedly in the late 1800s. In fact, they show us a tombstone to drive home the fact that the way they are living corresponds with the time period. They use archaic language and practices and overall it’s a believable setting. Until…you wisen up. After Lucius the brooder gets stabbed multiple times, the truth slowly comes out. Of course, unless you’re an idiot, you have known the truth for about 30 minutes already. Town leader/Elder/Main procreator takes his daughter Ivy down to the mysterious shed to prepare her for her trip through the evil woods to the town…and lo and behold- she finds out that the monsters in the woods aren’t really real. They’re just made up so people will not leave the village and realize what a big hoax their entire world has been. The town elders simply dress up in the monster costume occasionally to give the town a good scare and perpetuate the claim that monsters reside in the woods. Personally, if I was a town elder, I’d dress up in the costume daily and run around poking people with my creepy long nails. I’d lumber around calling out, “WooooHhhooohhooooo! I’m the creepy monster from the woods! Fear me! WoooohHHOhoooho!”. I’d be SO COOL. And I wonder….how’d they get the sounds out in the woods? Was someone in charge of randomly running out to the woods and giving out a monster call and then running back? Were there big tree mounted speakers? Big stereo system with subwoofers? What an elaborate hoax! The people who started the village decided to go back to a simpler time- so they created their surroundings. As they had children, they made them believe that it was the 1800s. Two points: why did they have to change the year? They could have said it was 2004 and no one there would have known the difference except for them. Secondly, there were probably 200+ people in the village- they must have been having sex like rabbits to produce that many kids out of 4 couples. It was a den of incestual crime! I’m surprised kids weren’t born with arms sticking out of their heads and 14 eyeballs.
The scene just before Lucius was wrapped in a cocoon of cotton candy!
To hide the remaining bits of their past from their children, the elders hid newspaper clippings and pictures in big black lockboxes (though…why didn’t they just get rid of them instead of having to hide them?). I’ll never forget the episode of Saturday Night Live a few years ago- it was a presidential debate between Bush and Gore. Gore was asked how he would protect the national budget and taxes and such, and his answer was always “put it in the lockbox”. The lockbox would be a mock copy of The Count of Monte Cristo fastened securely underneath the left rear bumper of the Speaker of the House’s limo. I could just imagine, during the movie, the budget popping out of the lockbox…maybe a tax report…or a prized sexual toy. Put it in the lockbox!
Everyone knows the best weapon to fight off impending Carrot Tops is a hedgehog!
I learned something new about handicapped people from this movie, as well. Blind people aren’t always blind! They’re just blind when necessity calls for it. In The Village, Ivy was “blind”. I say she was more like “schmlind” because she pretty much was only blind when she felt like it. Sometimes she would wildly run through the village, up to makeout rock and greet Billy or Frank or Andy or Lucius without them even saying anything, but other times, she would crazily tap her cane on the surrounding area and act like she’d never taken a step before in her life. It was erratic. It was crazy. It was damn funny. And the best part is, SHE was the one they sent to the town for medicine…and she managed to get there and back through the woods without incident (even though the wussy guys they sent to escort her ditched her at the first sign of rain and superb stereo sound).
My God. It was a horror movie after all!
I’m bored. I was thinking about the movie and I just got really bored. Kinda how I felt while I was WATCHING the movie. I wanted to sleep, talk, go to the restroom, wander into other theaters and sneak a peek at Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid and The Exorcist, and most of all…leave. Luckily, I went to see Shawn of the Dead that night, and that made up for the dollar movie hell that I inflicted upon myself. I, sadly, didn’t see The Village drunk, but I highly suggest you do. Maybe, with enough liquor, you can close you eyes and imagine a crappy Amish porno- after all, the movie has more fake moans than any one person could ever ask for.
Supershine rates this movie:
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