[Forest]

SPOILER WARNING!!!!!


Scroll past the asterixes to get to the post. They are just there as a final warning to anyone who DOES NOT want to read spoilers or twists about "The Village".



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The Village is about a small village set somewhere in the 1800s that lives in fear of creatures that live in the woods outisde their borders. However, there is a truce between the people of the village and the creatures. The creatures do not cross the borders into the village, and the people do not cross into the woods.

Then, one day, Lucius Hunt breaks this truce and ventures a short way into the woods thus causing the creatures to feel threatened.

With the 'things of which the village people do not speak' hell bent on murder and on the loose, where can the people turn for aid? For the elders swore an oath when they moved to the village to escape their dreadful life in the towns, that NO ONE would ever go into the towns again....but now, has the time come for them to break their sacred oath?


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I watched The Village this afternoon and thought it was above average for a slightly scary makes-you-jump type film. I normally don't go in for horror movies but i made an exception for this one because it looked pretty good. I think the general plot idea is fantastic and the twists make it even better.

I went into the film knowing there would be a twist, but more or less forgot about that as the film got going. When it was revealed that the creatures were all a hoax created up by the elders to keep people inside the village, I thought "Well, that's a bit of a crap twist!".

Then, when Ivy was in the woods and she sees a creature I thought "Ah ha! So that's the REAL twist". See, I remembered a point when Hurt was telling Ivy that the elders were behind the hoax, when he said "there are rumours in history books" or something like that. This made me think that the elders would have got the idea from rumours and built the farce upon that, but the creatures were actually real. (My friend thought this too).

Then, when the van came down the road and the true twist came about of it really being in the present day and the elders had pulled the wool over the whole village's eyes, making them truly believe they were living in the 1800s, I completely didn't realise it.

For some reason, I had been so engrossed in the plot of the story that my brain didn't make any connection between "van" and "21st Century". I only realised when I asked my friend to explain what the twist had been! *laughs* Then I got it!



All in all, I thought it was a wonderful movie. I'll give it 9/10 for unpredictability, 9/10 for enjoyment, 6/10 for scares and thrills, 8/10 for acting and 10/10 for plot idea.


~Forest

[Amlee]

I loved this movie. I left the theater like I had been apart of some joke. I was rolling because of the way people were acting as the left the theater. Some were mad and upset because of the ending. I thought it was a great movie!

[Anna]

Damn, I have to go see this movie!

[Amlee]

Yes you have to go see it. It's not scary but it is pure Shyamalan. Thats one thing about his movies that I like so much. He makes you go through so many emotions with his movies.

[Aerin]

I think the three hour sci-fi channel thing was a bit over the top as far as marketing goes, but, I had it mostly figured out by the time they let her go, what makes me think is how much effort went in to making thier place so isolated. The no fly zone, the Walker foundation etc. I was impressed more by what was implied, than by the movie itself. But I did like it.

[Amlee]

I didn't see the special, but I agree I sort of figured it was something alone the lines to what it was before the ending. I knew something was up when they agreed to let a blind girl go instead of someone that could see. She couldn't come back and tell them what was going on. LOL the response of the crowd was so funny.

[Anna]

Joaquin (sp?) Phoenix..........ooooooo........

[Amlee]

He's ok, but River was so much more better looking.

[Anna]

I´ll have to disagree with you on that, my dear. River didn´t look half as....intense as Joaquin. Gotta love the slightly evil-looking, brooding men!

[Amlee]

No he didn't have that look. River had more of the James Dean look about him.

[Anna]

Hmm, never cared much for James Dean, actually.

River Phoenix was a great actor, though.

[Robbie]

Oooops - perhaps I was the only one who wasn't that impressed. Most of the twists you could see coming from a mile away - including the whole pretence of the situation, who is going to be the heroine, who is going to cause trouble etc etc etc. As you noted there were no real scares (apart from one). So in that contecxt, it failed.

The acting, filming, sets etc were very good (excpet for the microphone boom that kept poking in the top of the shot - five times I saw it, and it's distracting). There was also something hanging in one of the tress in the woods during another shot.

Worth seeing, but if you only go and see one movie this year, that shouldn't be it. 7/10 overall.

[Aerin]

I agree, boom mike totally distracting, did you ever see the movie about the cuban missle crisis, the mike dropped in and the actors react to it, at least 12 times. I nearly left, And 7/10 is fair.

[Andreth]

I wasn't overly impressed by it. It was a good movie, mainly because of Joaquin Phoenix, Brendan Gleeson, and William Hurt, but it was marketed all wrong. Having seen Night's movies before I figured there'd be some kind of twist but most everyone went to the movie expecting to see a horror film. Then they were disappointed by the misleading trailers. If they'd marketed it for the proper audience instead of tricking people into coming to see it, I think they'd have gotten a much better reception.

It was worth seeing, but I have to say that I enjoyed the new Exorcist movie a whole lot more.

[JaneDoe]