Children of the Damned
Directed by Anton Leader
Written by John Briley
1964/UK
Lawrence P. Bachmann Productions for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer British Studios
First viewing/Netflix rental
[box] Tagline: … even more eerie and unearthly than “Village of the Damned”![/box]
Less the horror show that the poster promises and more a nifty little sci-fi thriller.
Psychologist Tom Llewellyn and geneticist Dave Neville have been asked by the UN to conduct intelligence tests of English children. One of them, Paul, proves to have a vastly superior IQ. Through its program the UN has identified six children in the world with not only similar but identical abilities.The children represent a mini-UN, coming from the UK, USSR, China, India, Nigeria and USA. The foreign children are all housed in their Embassies and the British MI-5 is trying to get its hands on Paul.
Through their special powers the children manage to escape the clutches of their governments and house themselves in an abandoned church. In the meantime, a scientist theorizes that the cell structure of the children might represent that which could be reached by homo sapiens after 1 million years of evolution. All the governments are interested in making the children secret weapons. What to do?
I liked this a lot, better than its IMDb rating would indicate. When finally pinned down and asked why they are here the only answer is “for the same reason you are.” There’s lots of intriguing ideas here. This is less a sequel of The Village of the Damned than a whole new story..
The DVD contained an OK commentary by the screenwriter who makes it clear that his intention was a Cold War allegory.
