I’d wanted to pick up ‘Children of the Damned’ for a couple of years, ever since catching ‘Village of the Damned’ a while ago and wondering how they’d handle a sequel to that film. Being honest, it feels almost like it writes itself, given the last film ends with the children being blown to pieces and the ‘alien’ element of the kids seemingly freed into a coporial form to escape the village and explore the wider world. It could have prompted an interesting sequel dealing with rebirth, revenge and an aliens view on the darker side of humanity. 

But ‘Children of the Damned’ isnt really that…in fact, its kind of forgettable…Or at the very least doesnt seem to pack the atmospheric punch that ‘Village’ had in spades. 

So the films kind of more of a sideways sequel to ‘Village’ than anything else. essentially the film doesnt really acknowledge the last film in any capacity, a lot of the ‘origin’ plot points have been airlocked, and barring a single line from one of the children about how they’ve ‘Died before’ Im pretty sure this thing has just lifted the idea of ‘psychic killer alien children’ from ‘Village’ and implanted it into this films world. 

The plot opens with a group of scientists testing the mental agility of some children, one of the kids ‘Paul’ isnt just significantly quicker at completing the puzzles, he’s able to solve puzzles that the other kids cant even comprehend. On seeing Pauls genius, the staff really want more information about his circumstance. But his mothers cagey on details around Paul, his father or his birth. and after a bizarre accident befalls Pauls Mother, she confides in them that she was a virgin at the time of Pauls birth, there was no father, and shes known since the birth that something wasnt quite right with him. 

The scientists continue their testing, visitng various embassys where similar stories and children emerge. All the while Paul is under the care of his distant aunt, who doesnt really know much about whats going on. She takes Paul being a kid for granted. and when the scientists become keen to take Paul in for further observations. He hypnotises his aunt, travels to each of the embassys to collect the other ‘gifted’ children and the lot of them hold up in an abandoned cathedral. All the while the scientists slowly begin to piece together that Paul and the other kids are somehow all linked together, that they have mind control powers, and that they may not even be of this earth! And when word spreads about the supernatural children, the embassys work quickly to mobalize a military response to the children, considering them a threat to humanity. Even though our scientists seem confident that isnt really the case. 

Essentially, this felt like a bit of a letdown after ‘Village’ on pretty much every level. 

The script doesnt command the same level of atmosphere as ‘Village’ the first entry felt like a bit of a hybrid of a Nigel Neil script crossed with ‘The Twilight Zone’ there was a real sense of atmosphere, forboding…the unknown!. This film feels more like a moral tale, that underplays the unknown and plays things almost like a 50s ‘atom age’ picture. The first film had genuinely unpleasent moments of horror. This film? the kids barely get to use their supernatural powers, and when they do, its mainly hypnosis or telecommunication. Which sucks. its dull! 

This could have been a pretty easy win. Set the film in a smaller rural village, have the spirits of the children from the last film ‘possess’ the bodies of random children from this smaller, less developed village and have them slowly hypnotise and manipulate this small community into paranoid brutalists murdering each other because they dont know whos ‘possessed’ and who isnt. Instead? we get a plodding thriller with horror elements thats essentially an anti-nuclear war picture. that doesnt have the courage of its convictions to BE an anti nuclear war film till the last 20-30 minutes or so.

The pacing is slow and plodding, this is a dialogue heavy film that feels like it has to spoon feed you every. single. plot detail, not matter how big or small…its dragging its heels for the most part and as such a LOT of the more interesting or unique moments that made the first film so engaging…are just missing from this. Put it this way, this is the kind of movie where you can just…flat out leave for 10 minutes, and if you come back, you either wont have missed anything, or one of the characters will do you a 3 minute long recap of everything thats just happened. At that point, I kind of wonder what the point of engaging with the media is. 

The characters are all pretty dull, the children in the last film had a unique look and identity, as a hive mind it meant there was a lot of opportunity to play that up and create an unsettling look and feel…But here? thats relegated, all the kids purposfully look different (for the cold war messaging) and they really dont play that much on the supernatural element, the ‘eye glowing’ effects that felt fairly regular in the first, get wheeled out a couple of times MAX in this one. and we dont really get any kind of set pieces apart from the VERY VERY end of the film. and thats not caused by the children. 

I will say they handle the act structuring fairly well, the film does have a few fun moments in the plotting and the ending is fairly bombastic…But it kind of lacks the power of the originals ending. that film ended with a defeated ‘bittersweet’ sacrifice. This films ending is trigger by some berk accidentally dropping a screwdriver onto a wire, that completes a circuit by mistake…it feels less refined as a work is what im saying.

Direction wise, its kind of unremarkable too. Not bad by any stretch, but it feels smaller, everythings handled in close ups or mid wides, we’ve shifted from a countryside village to a city…and that location change really harms the films looks and feels. the grungy city vibe helps make things feel more ‘cop drama’ esq…but the village location helped add to the sense of helplessness, the feeling that all of this was happening beyond the realms of city community and safety. As such, this film looks and feels more like a kitchen sink drama, than a supernatural scifi horror sequel. and its just kind of beige for it. 

Theres some interesting scene setups dotted throughout, and given this is a studio pic, I wasnt really expecting anything to be inherently BAD int he direction…but it is kind of just ‘going through the motions’ for lack of a better descriptive. 

The cines much the same, theres some nice lighting moments here and there, the edits tight enough, special effects are a bit lacking…but shots are well composed for the most part…theres just…no sense of adventurousness…the first film had TONS of interesting or unique moments that really helped lift it up. this? this just feels like some guys filming what they think will work…its ‘safe’, and overly ‘safe’ at that. 

throw in a kind of unremarkable soundtrack to boot, and you have a really quite dissapointing follow up. I cannot stress how much potential, and how easy it would have been to have made a sequel to that original film that managed to keep the atmosphere and build on the lore…and they seem to have shelved that idea in favour of cramming ‘The Children’ into a shelved 50’s cold war thriller script whether they fitted in or not. 

Would I rewatch this one again? maybe?…I guess? Like I say, it wasnt BAD inherently or anything…But if I want that kind of ‘quatermass and the pit’ style sci-fi horror…This film isnt the one to provide it. I’d say if you saw ‘Village’ and liked it, maybe check this one out…but temper your expectations…if you havent seen ‘village’ your not missing out.

Source – https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/children-of-the-damned/