CHILDREN OF THE DAMNED
UK, 1963, 90 minutes, Black and White.
Ian Hendry, Alan Badel, Barbara Ferris, Alfred Burke, Sheila Allen, Ralph Michael.
Directed by Anton M. Leader.
Children of the Damned is a commercial sequel to "Village of the Damned". It draws on the themes and atmosphere of the original film. However, the story was not written by John Wyndham. In many ways this film is too derivative of the original. However, for those who enjoy the presentation, the themes, the aspects of science fiction, this film should prove quite interesting and enjoyable.
1. The tone of the title and its atmosphere? The success of this film as a sequel to "Village of the Damned"?
2. What were audience expectations of this film? As a science-fiction thriller? The expectations of science and progress, fantasy and imagination, fears and dangers, warnings? How successful was this film as science-fiction?
3. The quality of the black and white photography, the atmosphere of darkness and menace etc.?
4. How plausible was the story in this film? Was it presented plausibly and with credibility?
5. Comment on the use of authentic backgrounds and atmosphere, modern England. The tests of the children and the gradual build-up of an atmosphere of menace and danger. How did this add to the impact of the film on modern audiences?
6. Why were the children mysterious? The fact that they came from different countries? Their personalities as children? Their relationships with their mothers? The enigma of their means of communication? The power they had? The reason that they began to menace human beings, the deaths that they caused, their being forced together and persecuted? Were they dangerous?
7. How did the police and the people testing them compare with them in their attitudes? How sympathetic were the police and the testing people?
8. Was the film wise to focus on Susan and her association with the children? The dangers for her, her relationship with them? The human interests?
9. The atmosphere of the church and the ruin? The way they behaved in the church? The destructive atmosphere symbolised by the broken church?
10. What morality lay behind the decisions about the children's destruction? The sequences of the clash of power and the deaths? Where did audience sympathies lie? Why?
11. The irony of the children's destruction by accident? Their decision to be unlike the violent world and be non-violent? The irony of their deaths?
12. What were the basic moral messages behind this science-fiction film? Were they able to be received by the audience because the film was enjoyable science-fiction?
