Village of the Damned (1960)
Director: Wolf Rilla Run Time: 77 min. Rating: NR Release Year: 1960
Starring: Barbara Shelley, George Sanders, Laurence Naismith, Martin Stephens, Michael Gwynn
Country: United Kingdom, United States
Language: English
About the film:
One day the peaceful village of Midwich is cast into a mysterious sleep for several hours, but with no obvious consequences, until soon all the women of child-bearing age turn out to be pregnant. Their children are all born at the same time, and grow quickly into very spooky young people, with strange white-blonde hair and eerie eyes.
About the filmmaker:
Wolf Rilla was a German-born film director and writer who primarily worked in the United Kingdom, best known for directing the 1960 cult classic Village of the Damned. Born in Berlin to actor Walter Rilla, the family relocated to London in 1934 to escape the rising Nazi regime. Rilla’s career began at the BBC, where he worked in radio and later television before transitioning to feature films in 1953. Beyond directing, he also wrote several books for students, including “The Writer and the Screen: On Writing for Film and Television” and “The A to Z of Movie Making”. He co-scripted Village of the Damned, based on John Wyndham’s The Midwich Cuckoos, and directed over 20 other films, including Bachelor of Hearts (1958), Cairo (1963), and Secrets of a Door-to-Door Salesman (1973). In his later years, he and his wife ran a hotel in Provence, France.
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