Village of the Damned

This movie was known to me on several list, including Metacritic, as a good film in the arena of early sci-fi and horror that inspired many future ideas in those genres. After watching it myself, I am not sure I can correlate many; the film is very unique. There is a wonderful element of mystery as to what is going on, and along with the characters, you uncover that mystery in pieces which can lead to both interest and some dread as you find out more. It never fully seems to be clear to me by the end of the movie what was absolutely going on, although there is enough to formulate a few solid theories. One thing I think we can be certain of though is the kids in this movie are very creepy.

It gets into melodramatic terrain but this is a clear example of how to make horror with subtlety and focused on the atmosphere. Something that has been lost to the unstoppable wave of gore and simple jump scares that has saturated the genre for years. Far superior to John Carpenter's washed out remake.