If You Go Down To The Woods (The Village (DVD))

Member Name: utero

Product:	The Village (DVD)
Date:	06/11/05 (99 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A few decent extras, nice transfer and sound

Disadvantages: The film is a tad dull and lacks scares

M.Night Shyamalan is a director who has made a lot of money from making films with a hook. You know, one thing that switches the movie on its head. This trick first came to the fore with The Sixth Sense, a ghost story with a solid performances and a genuinely good twist. Next came the very under-rated Unbreakable, which in my opinion was better. Signs was also another solid effort, able to build suspense and fear without actually seeing the aliens.

Then came The Village, a creepy little tale set in an old rural community in America. The villager’s community is peaceful; their only danger comes from ‘those that we don’t speak of’. A mythical bunch of creatures that occupy the surrounding woods. But these creatures don’t enter the village, as long the villagers don’t venture into the woods. But naturally something occurs that means someone must go to into the woods to fetch much needed medicine. As you’d expect, spooky things happen, there are scares and then as we reach the climax there’s a big twist.

To be totally honest I found The Village a crushing bore from start to finish. The film looks good and is shot beautifully but not a lot happens. Shyamalan creates a mood that doesn’t really lift above a monotone state at any time. There is a great cast featuring the likes of Sigourney Weaver, William Hurt and Joaquin Phoenix but all of them are stuck with a script that lacks any real zip. I hope this is the last of Shyamalan’s ‘twist’ movies as this one sucks the big one. I’m not going to give it away but I was left with a feeling of ‘meh’. You know that feeling, the one where you feel you’ve waited ninety minutes for something great to make the film worthwhile only for it to be a damp squib. That’s what I got from watching the Village and it annoyed me.

-Audio & Video-

The film is presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen. The cinematography by Roger Deakins looks great on the small screen. The warm colours of the landscape are crisp and vibrant although at times things look a little soft. However this may be more to do with the intended look and style of the film.

The film is mainly a talker, meaning there’s not a lot of call for things that would make your subwoofer growl with anger or your rear speakers to rumble. The Dolby Digital 5.1 Soundtrack offers good reproduction of dialogue and generally creates a good ambience. The score especially sounds great when played in 5.1.

-Extras-

Shyamalan doesn’t do audio commentaries on his films. So instead there’s a decent offering to supplement the film.

‘Deconstructing The Village’ is a 25-minute making of split into sections. As a documentary it’s decent enough. There’s footage and interviews covering the look of the movie, the style and how it was cast. The musical score is also covered, as is the design of the ‘creatures’. To be honest, it would have been nice to have this run for double the time as a lot of it feels thin in content and not meeting the potential.

11-minutes of deleted scenes follow and all are pretty average but then they would be. If they were any good then they’d be in the film.

Actress Bryce Howard shares some of her diary for about five minutes. It’s a nice little piece about her experience on the film interspersed with footage on the shoot. For those that don’t know, a film set should be nothing new to Bryce as her dad is Ron Howard – the director of films such as A Beautiful Mind, Splash and Apollo 13.

On previous Shyamalan DVD’s there have been little home movie’s included. On this disc you get a very faded and rough take on Indiana Jones as directed by Shyamalan in his youth. What this shows is that you can goof around with a video camera in your youth and then make millions years later – hurrah!

Things wrap up with a photo gallery featuring over thirty stills.

-And Finally-

For me this film was a bit of a disappointment. It lacked the real haunting quality of The Sixth Sense, the grand themes of Unbreakable and the general scare tatics of Signs. Above all else, the ending wasn’t very good at all. The film can be picked up for under a tenner but I’d probably advise a rental first.

Summary: Be there monsters in them woods or be it something else?