The Village

The Village

Even the previews to this movie were complete shit. I mean, if I go to a movie and the movie turns out to be horribly horribly crap, then at least I've seen previews for movies that look good (though obviously I feel quite ripped-off by the theatre for paying 14 bloody dollars to watch 20 mins of previews). But I digress...
I was excited that Joaquin Phoenix was in it, simply because he's a pretty good actor. Not bad to look at either. I also realised that M. Night Shymalan (I'm going to refer to him as M-Dog from now on cause his last name is too goddam hard to spell) er, what was I saying before I so rudely interrupted myself?? Oh, M-Dog has a pattern with actors. The Village is his fourth big movie and he's only really used two actors for his main characters: Bruce Willis (the disappointing Sixth Sense, and er... some other one that looked retarded, it had Samuel L. Jackson in it *Shaft! you damn right...*) and Joaquin Phoenix (Signs and The Village). M-Dog also likes to put himself into his films (just like Hitchcock! he must be similarly gifted!!! not) which is slightly annoying because you spend the entire film going "is that him?? no wait, is *that* him??" which is useless since he makes it pretty damn obvious when he makes a cameo.
The Village is all about a town basically in the middle of bumfuck nowhere U.S.A. (go through the field, take a left at the cows). It's the end of the 19th century and, of course, they're living in a harmonius commune... except for that little carnivourous creature problem. The town has this... understanding with these freakish beings that live in the woods: (to quote William Hurt) they don't go into the woods and the creatures don't go into the town. Oh, if it were only that easy. Why, oh why, must you ruin their hippie valley M-Dog? Have you no shame??
The main shit-disturber?? You guessed it. Joaquin Phoenix, acting both stupidly brave and laughibly cowardly all at once, steps into the woods and, whoops, one of the creatures sees him. Crazy shit starts to happen and then there's a huge twist (I'd call it a hole, but whatever...) occurs in the script. I won't give it away in case you actually DO want to go see it... I'd recommend just downloading it though.
You know, after letting it sink in, I realised it *is* kind of a creepy movie, but just because of the music and the sound effects. There's a scene where the town gets together to celebrate a wedding that's particularly creepy because they keep hearing sounds in the woods (ie twigs breaking, howls, equally scary noises). The creatures' appearances are revealed too early in the film, but the first sight is pretty freaky.
Actually, you know what? Go see it. It's worth seeing in the threatre. I keep going over scenes in my head and, yeah, it's good... I mean, it's not as scary as The Ring, but I've realised that M-Dog's movies aren't about making you an insomniac for 3 nights straight, but too be just slightly freaked out. And the twist in this is pretty good.