Discuss "The Village" for those who have seen it! SPOILERS HERE
 

I just got back from a viewing of Shyamalan's The Village. Suffice it to say, I was VERY disappointed. I am going to discuss my thoughts on the movie here, and to do that, I need to talk about the plot twists. So, if you haven't seen the film, don't read any further if you don't want to know what happens.



First of all, the film isn't really that bad. Taken objectively, it is actually pretty good .... for what it is. However, for us die-hard horror fans who wanted something truly scary and atmospheric, we were cheated. The Village advertises itself as a horror movie ... but it is not. It is not a horror movie at all. For one, the monsters in the woods aren't even real! I thought that they would be, seeing as in his other films, the supernatural elements turned out to be real. But not in this one. Oh no. And not only are they not real, but you learn that they aren't real halfway through the movie! So, any scares that the film tries to produce after this fact is revealed all fall flat.

Plus, the unique "twist" at the end was pretty predictable. I knew that "the towns" on the other side of the woods were actually modern day cities when the woman told Ivy that her sister "was killed in an alley." You just don't have alleys in nineteenth century villages! So, I wasn't surprised by the ending at all.

But, let's just say that we don't watch The Village with the hopes of seeing a good, scary movie. Let's say we just go into the theater, not expecting anything. Only by doing this will you enjoy the movie. It does have it's saving graces. It is actually an interesting and thought-provoking story .... albeit, not a horror tale. The cinematography and music are all very well done, and add scores to the creepiness that the film does manage to produce at first. The acting seems a little odd and forced ... but this is because the characters who inhabit the village are acting. At least, the ones who first arrived there are. They are actually regular people from our time who have suffered injustices to the point that they wanted to create a place that preserves innocence. And so, they made the village. Well, you saw the movie ... you know the plot. It only makes sense that these regular people would have a hard time speaking the way they do, what with the clipped consonants and absence of contractions.

So, as a movie with no ties to any particular genre (other than, perhaps, thriller), The Village was fun to watch the first time ... but unworthy of a second viewing.

As a horror film ... it TOTALLY SUCKS! I went in there hoping for at least a few thrills, and got absolutely none. And Shyamalan slapped me in the face when I learned that there was really nothing to be scared of at all. Just villagers running about in costumes. I hate that man now. I really do.

I'm not gonna read this because I plan on seeing this next week on my vacation. After I do I shall respond. Stingy...you still have a DVD coming if you want it. If not I understand. I would be a little leary giving out my address to some strange dude on the internet.







but I can assure you....I am quite harmless.

what a full bag of shit!!!i heard he rewrote the ending.i have yet to see this movie(as far as i'm concerned the magic died when i found out santa claws was a fake...it's been a rough 2 years!)but i'll think i'll wait for the dvd.thanks for the heads up!! :D

Acutally, I have no problem giving out my mailing address to you. I do have a problem asking you to burn one of your DVDs, though, and spend money mailing it to me. :)

:eek: I think hes on to me................play it cool :)

Its no problem at all. I have a ton of blanks and like I said....I'm a Shipping Mgr. So the mailing process [ be it UPS or USPS ] is no problem.

Deffently agree with this matter. It was a tottal jip. I wanted to see people killed blood and guts and viens in my teeth. If I wanted to see a love story I would have gone to see "The Notebook" or something. The only reason that I am glad I saw it was because it was actually filmed in my town. This world needs more horror movies. I'm sick of looking at the list of movies at the theaters and not seeing anything worth watching.

Thus far The Village is easily the worst film of the year. I mean we all know what to expect from fodder like White Chicks and Anchor Man, but there's no excuse for something this bad to be passed off on the unsuspecting public. Mr. Shyamalan is a somewhat talented director, at least visually. He knows how to build dread and suspense with minimalist backgrounds and slightly askew angles, and by letting conversations play themselves out in strangely set-up two-shots. But that's as far as it goes, and after three suspense movies even his style is predictable.

As a screenwriter, he is simply horrible. His dialogue is atrocious (actually laughable in The Village, like he aped the Bronte sisters), and his plots are simply gimmicks. He should be working in a thirty-minute TV format, not film. A plot twist does not make a movie.

In The Village he apparantly doesn't even understand simple narrative logic. You can't reveal that the monsters are fake and then throw one on the screen to scare us. Even Scooby isn't scared after he unmasks the baddie.

The Village also has the bigget gimmick scare in film history---the blind girl falls down and the music imitates a gunshot. Everyone in the theater jumped, not realizing it was the jarring music cue and not the tumble that hooked them. Ridiculous. You could play the same music cue during any scene in White Chicks and get the same response.

The end was so predictable I was angry. I hate movies when what you expected from the first five minutes in actually turns out to be true. And I would have known that the monsters were bogus, but people concerned with the making of the film have been doing interviews and saying that the monsters are real (even in this month's Fangoria). Put simply, the plot is so flimsy and the tiwist so predictable that the cast and crew are actually lying in a pathetic attempt to mislead the viewer. At least they tried, which seems to be more than m Night Shyamalan did.

Damn Dr.Kelvin, its good to see you around again....i always enjoyed your reviews of movies as you always know what your talking about...

Good to see you around and about on the board these days....

Thanks for the welcome, Arioch. It's fun to be back...I forgot how cool it was talking about my great passion...fright flicks.

For real....thats the reason we are all here right? Or atleast....it should be....

...
 

Am I the only one who enjoyed this movie? It wasn't that much of a horror movie and the ending wasn't great but I still liked it.

IT SUCKED!

I thought that the story that was told was very good. However, I was disappointed in the fact that it wasn't a horror movie. They should have kept the fact that the monsters aren't real until the very end of the movie. At least this way, the twist would have been much better.
________
FJ1100

I saw it, and was a little disappointed but it was still pretty good...just not what I was expecting, exactly. :o My mom kept saying how cruel it was of those people to lie about the "monsters", to the other people in the village. :p

I will never see another M. Night Shyamalan movie. The previews were completely misleading. I felt almost violated after watching it. The plot was original, but definitely not good. The acting was horrible, except for the blind chick.

I hate it, very, very badly.

The Village was awsome, when they tell you the monstar was fake midway threw and when the monstar comes back a voice over says that there were stories in history that the monstars were real, so it still could have been real, why would you expect blood and guts from a pg-13 m. night film, his films are always scary without using hardly any blood so why would you think the village was going to be a hardcore gore movie, the ending was ok and i dont go see movies just for the ending so I enjoyed the film, M. Nights cameo was great in this movie and it was just a good fun movie and M. night Shtamalan did a great job!

I wasn't expecting gore. I was expecting scary, which that movie was NOT at all.

Sorry, but if that movie scared you (no personal offense to anyone), you're a simpleton.

lol

It had some suspenseful moments and a few jumps but I agree that it wasn't really scary.

the only good part is the retard

Agree
 

I have to agree. Adrien Brody had a power-house performance in that movie...I wasn't expecting the movie to be scary though....Why does it say undead under my name?

I saw this movie Friday and I've been thinking about it quite a lot since then, my final opinion of this movie is that it was a huge disapointment. First let me say I'm a huge fan of Night's prior movies, so I knew what to expect when I walked into the theater. The Village proves that Night needs to stop making movies with twists, he concentrates way to much on surprising the audience and forgets to create an interesting story. I'm almost positive that he thought up some twists in his mind and then threw a story together, thus resulting in a dull movie with a few interesting scenes. Before we knew the monsters were fake there were some genuinely frightening scenes, I thought it was very cool to actually show a full shot of the monsters so early in the film instead of hiding them the entire time. The secret IMO was given away far to early, especially given the fact that it was a lame secret. For one thing it makes me completely uninterested in viewing it a second time. Also...it's lame...I don't know what else to say??? Roger Ebert said it best in his movie review, it's about one step away from waking up at the end and saying "it was all a dream". After the big showdown with the monster we already knew was fake the story ends for me, nothing else of interest happens. So they were in modern times, so what? Somehow through suttle clues I already knew this and wasn't surprised...not to mention didn't care. Want more complaints??? The acting (which gets a lot of accolades) was atrocious, just about everyone was on the same line playing perfect souls. Not sure if it was the bad dialouge they had to work with but something wasn't clicking. One last complaint, the ending sucked, it was just a cutoff and a pretty bad way to end a slow moving melodrama. - Here's were I finally get positive - Bryce Dallas Howard was stunning , the only bright spot in acting. I honestly feel she should get some kind of nomination even though the movie wasn't great. Night's visual style was also great, loved the shots in the forest and his style during the creature sequences. - This is where I end the postives - I am being a little over critical on this movie but that's because I expected so much more from Night, being a big fan of his. I honestly feel this could have been on of my favorite movies in years, too bad Night ruined it with a shotty, witless attempt at style.

Agreed. I am certain that I would have liked this film a lot more had I:

1. Never seen any of Night's previous movies, therefore not knowing what to expect.

2. Not seen the previews that caused me to think it was going to be scary.

Like I said before, it's really not a bad film if you watch it with absolutely no expectations at all. But, with a director like Night, that's pretty hard to do.

I was cheated!! This movie sucked. I need to go to Mr. Shyamalan's house and ask for my money back...just like that southpark episode.









The monsters weren't real!!!!


I can't get over it...

nv.
Exactly how I felt, as I posted in my review above Ebert said it best. The fact that the monsters weren't real is about as lame as having someone in the story wake up and say "it was all a dream".

It's basically a movie about how a bunch of pshyco's in therapy feel that they were wronged in life cause bad shit happened to the people they loved.
Go into the forest somewhere and make up this little life for themselves...then scare the becheesis out of the kiddies by telling them there's creatures in the woods. Start to talk all funny and pretend the year is 1897??? Hmmm...it sucked. FAKE CREATURES!!

I've heard it sucks, and I've heard it's awesome...so i'm gonna take it was sugar and salt...hope it's ok...

M. Night made an awsome movie and I think some people are being to hard on him, it was a good fun movie better then a lot of movies that came out this summer so far, Adrien Brody and Bryce Dallas Howard were great in it and Joaquen was cool in it, M. Night Shyamalan is great

donnie darkko
Night is an awesome director and that's why I'm being so hard on him for The Village. He needs to stop making movies just so he can try and surprise the audience with a twist. Did you honestly find the ones in The Village interesting?

Adrien Brody was very good in it i was interested in his character as well as byrce dallas howards character the only problom i had with it was I thought Joaquen should have had more to work with and have a better part but it was originally made for aston kutcher so thats probly why joaquen didnt have that great a part

Just got back from seeing this with the family. Believe it or not ,and without reading any reviews or any thing on this site,just from the commercials I knew exactly what the movie was going to be about. Maybe I've been watching movies for too long, but as soon as the scenerio about the villagers not being able to cross the woods was revealed in the commercials....bingo....I figured it out. Maybe I'm a fucking genius......ok...lucky guess perhaps. Anyway about the movie....I thought the acting was very good, especially Opie's daughter.Not scary at all but that could be attributed to my hindsight.The thing about a movie like this is it doesn't warrant a repeat viewing at all.One thing that bugged me was why did the elders , as part of their "hoax" set the years to be 1890's as the tombstone from the first scene suggested? The children growing up in the village wouldn't have know any differance if it was the 1800s or the year 2004, as far as their way of living was concerned, [ did I word that properly, teach Stingy, does that make sense? ] Anyway I guess what I'm saying is the movie was aight but thats about it. Maybe my 12 year old summed it up pretty good. He turned to me and said "that sucked". cute little monster.:)

So is this movie worth watching? None of the other Shamaylans have so................

I would say no. Especially after reading this thread. Once the plot "twist" is revealed it leaves the movie void of any suspense.

if u like the awsome M. Night then yea its worth it, its way worth it

Dude... get off his dick...

M. Night is an awesome producer, but that movie sucked the salt off of my balls.

The Movie Rocked!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

major suckfest!
 

The Village was an awful dissapointment from beginning to end. The trailers for it lead you to believe that this was a suspenceful horror movie that would be one of the year's best. Total letdown. If they completely changed the twist, didn't reveal the falseness of the 'creatures', and got some better scripts, then you could of had a good movie!

And wdoes anybody know why Shyamalan initials his 1st name? It's prolly cause he wants us to take him serioulsy as a 'horror' director and he's hiding that his 1sy name is Melvin or something. Anyone out there know his real first name?

yea dude its not melven and im pretty sure M.Night doesnt care if some people dont take him seriuosly as a horror director thats because hes a great director and his first name is maloj

Some critics have said he makes critic proof movies. Critique or reveal very much of the story/plot in a review and you give it away for the movie going public. I would class it as more of a suspense film than anything else. Maybe if he had let the audience in on the secret earlier, and expanded the film in that direction, then went back, and explored the manisfestation of real creatures/demons brought on by the fears of the village it would have been more effective. However it would have been a diffrent film then...

I'd tell friends to wait until it comes out on DVD and spend a couple of bucks to rent it.

WRONG!!!!!!

I read this thread before I went to the movie (Just got home)....and I think I enjoyed it more than I would have, had I not known the ending. And the twists. Luckily there were a few things noone mentioned...but I would have loved it anyway.


Im not gonna comment on the fact that there was no blood and gore....cause I think anyone who cant enjoy a movie that doesnt have people being brutally ripped apart....is a complete idiot.