The Village

[Guest Coffey]

Seriously, what the fuck is it? Apparently the movie is based on a book, so what is everyone hiding from? At first I thought it was going to be a werewolf movie or something, but I really don't have a clue.

 

The way I see it, if they're hiding what the shit is in the trailers, the movie is probably going to be bad. That's just too much anticipation. Everyone will feel let down when some big red CGI looking horseshit comes on screen.

[NoCalMike 0]

Seriously, what the fuck is it? Apparently the movie is based on a book, so what is everyone hiding from? At first I thought it was going to be a werewolf movie or something, but I really don't have a clue.

 

The way I see it, if they're hiding what the shit is in the trailers, the movie is probably going to be bad. That's just too much anticipation. Everyone will feel let down when some big red CGI looking horseshit comes on screen.

There are already a dozen or so theories as to how the movie ends. You can find them with a little research on the net....

[MarvinisaLunatic 0]

I heard they were Amish.

[Guest SP-1]

Seriously, what the fuck is it? Apparently the movie is based on a book, so what is everyone hiding from? At first I thought it was going to be a werewolf movie or something, but I really don't have a clue.

 

The way I see it, if they're hiding what the shit is in the trailers, the movie is probably going to be bad. That's just too much anticipation. Everyone will feel let down when some big red CGI looking horseshit comes on screen.

Have you ever seen a Shayamalan movie? You don't see what's there because he doesn't want you to. Plain and simple.

 

He's delivered before, I have no doubts he'll do it this time.

[razazteca 0]

It will probably end like the other M. Knight movies what if the people of the villege were the monsters and were hiding from society?

 

Just a guess.

[DangerousDamon 0]

It will probably end like the other M. Knight movies what if the people of the villege were the monsters and were hiding from society?

 

Just a guess.

That's what I thought when I saw the commercial on tv.

[NoCalMike 0]

I figured they were just Amish/Colonial folks that use the "threat of monsters" as a way to scare anyone that thinks about venturing out from the villiage via curiosity. I have a feeling it will end with Jaoquin Phoenix's character making it to the other side of the woods, and it will be like the Outskirts of Philadelphia or Pittsburgh and it will be revealed that it is actually present time (2000-ish)

[Mole 0]

I figured they were just Amish/Colonial folks that use the "threat of monsters" as a way to scare anyone that thinks about venturing out from the villiage via curiosity. I have a feeling it will end with Jaoquin Phoenix's character making it to the other side of the woods, and it will be like the Outskirts of Philadelphia or Pittsburgh and it will be revealed that it is actually present time (2000-ish)

That would be a good ending.

 

I read in EW, I think, that M. Night and the lead cast had to be called back in for re-shoots. Some guy guessed the ending of the movie by just reading the tagline, so Night had to change the ending.

[NoCalMike 0]

I figured they were just Amish/Colonial folks that use the "threat of monsters" as a way to scare anyone that thinks about venturing out from the villiage via curiosity.  I have a feeling it will end with Jaoquin Phoenix's character making it to the other side of the woods, and it will be like the Outskirts of Philadelphia or Pittsburgh and it will be revealed that it is actually present time (2000-ish)

That would be a good ending.

 

I read in EW, I think, that M. Night and the lead cast had to be called back in for re-shoots. Some guy guessed the ending of the movie by just reading the tagline, so Night had to change the ending.

I don't mind that ending, but at the same time the biggest way M. Night could suprise people would just to do a STRAIGHT FOWARD movie/storyline. Since everyone going in should be sitting around waiting for a twist.

[Mole 0]

That would actually be a twist in itself.

[razazteca 0]

What the one where he gets ran over by a truck

[Dangerous A 0]

I have my doubts about NoCalMike's hidden rumor. They show glimpse's of an actual creature and/or monster, so we may just get a straight forward story here.

[NoCalMike 0]

What the one where he gets ran over by a truck

There was that one, or the one where.....

 

he makes it to the otherside of the woods, and some guy drives by in a truck and says, "ugh, stupid white people" and then it cuts to the credits, and the audience just puts two and two together for themselves

[Dangerous A 0]

Those endings sound like conclusional jokes someone came to after watching the previews.

[Mole 0]

What was the twist in "Signs?" I never really thought there was one.

[Dangerous A 0]

What was the twist in "Signs?" I never really thought there was one.

I agree. That was Shamalan's first straight forward flick, IMO.

[Mole 0]

What was the twist in "Signs?" I never really thought there was one.

I agree. That was Shamalan's first straight forward flick, IMO.

My friend was just telling me that the "twist" was that the movie wasn't about the aliens, but what the aliens symbloized or whatever.

 

I didn't really like "Signs," but I think "Unbreakable" is underrated.

[NoCalMike 0]

What was the twist in "Signs?" I never really thought there was one.

I agree. That was Shamalan's first straight forward flick, IMO.

My friend was just telling me that the "twist" was that the movie wasn't about the aliens, but what the aliens symbloized or whatever.

 

I didn't really like "Signs," but I think "Unbreakable" is underrated.

I read a theory that Signs was a metaphor that strengthened Shamalyn's religious beliefs or something. I dunno to me Signs was the weakest of his three movies.

 

Oh and if you wanted to STRETCH, you could say the twist in Signs was that these all powerful aliens that were afraid of water, decided to come invade a planet that was 75% filled with water.......LOL, I know that isn't a twist, just a plot deficiency......

[Mole 0]

What was the twist in "Signs?" I never really thought there was one.

I agree. That was Shamalan's first straight forward flick, IMO.

My friend was just telling me that the "twist" was that the movie wasn't about the aliens, but what the aliens symbloized or whatever.

 

I didn't really like "Signs," but I think "Unbreakable" is underrated.

I read a theory that Signs was a metaphor that strengthened Shamalyn's religious beliefs or something. I dunno to me Signs was the weakest of his three movies.

This is from aboutfilm.com

 

Though there is no Big Twist in Signs, which some have come to expect of Shyamalan, the two tracks join together at the end in an unusual way, one that is emotionally satisfying even though the what-the-hell-is-happening issue is not fully fleshed out. The ending is even more satisfying if you regard the aliens not necessarily as extraterrestrial life, but as demons, and the whole film as a Biblical tale.

[AmericanDragon 0]

They called me Mr. Glass.

[Guest TonyJaymzV1]

They called me Mr. Glass.

Unbreakable has been my favorite M.Night movie so far.

 

 

I'm pretty sure his whole reason for making Signs was to make an Alien movie that didn't focus on aliens. But yeah the whole "water kills them" thing is pretty pathetic. I mean, who would invade a planet made up of mainly wtaer? Go to Mars! Build a theme Park!

[Downhome 0]

The moment that I saw the trailer, I took a guess at the ending the film, and it's pretty much what everyone here has said so far.

 

Here is Eberts review. It doesn't spoil anything, but it does hint at the ending, so don't read this is you don't want to know anything at all. I bolded the ending of this review, which is just great.

 

''The Village'' is a colossal miscalculation, a movie based on a premise that cannot support it, a premise so transparent it would be laughable were the movie not so deadly solemn. It's a flimsy excuse for a plot, with characters who move below the one-dimensional and enter Flatland.

 

M. Night Shyamalan, the writer-director, has been successful in evoking horror from minimalist stories, as in ''Signs,'' which if you think about it rationally is absurd -- but you get too involved to think rationally. He is a considerable director who evokes stories out of moods, but this time, alas, he took the day off.

 

Critics were enjoined after the screening to avoid revealing the plot secrets. That is not because we would spoil the movie for you. It's because if you knew them you wouldn't want to go. The whole enterprise is a shaggy dog story, and in a way it is all secrets. I can hardly discuss it at all without being maddeningly vague.

 

Let us say that it takes place in an unspecified time and place, surrounded by a forest the characters never enter. The clothing of the characters and the absence of cars and telephones and suchlike suggests either the 1890s or an Amish community. Everyone speaks as if they had studied ''Friendly Persuasion.'' The chief civic virtues are probity and circumspection. Here is a village that desperately needs an East Village.

 

The story opens with a funeral attended by all the villagers, followed by a big outdoor meal at long tables groaning with corn on the cob and all the other fixin's. Everyone in the village does everything together, apparently, although it is never very clear what most of their jobs are. Some farming and baking goes on.

 

The movie is so somber, it's afraid to raise its voice in its own presence. That makes it dreary even during scenes of shameless melodrama. We meet the patriarch Edward Walker (William Hurt), who is so judicious in all things he sounds like a minister addressing the Rotary Club. His daughter Ivy (Bryce Dallas Howard) is blind but spunky. The stalwart young man, Lucius Hunt (Joaquin Phoenix), petitions the elders to let him take a look into the forest. His widowed mother, Alice (Sigourney Weaver), has feelings for Edward Walker. The village idiot (Adrien Brody), gambols about, and gamboling is not a word I use lightly. There is a good man and true (Brendan Gleeson). And a bridegroom who is afraid his shirt will get wrinkled.

 

Surrounding the village is the forest. In the forest live vile, hostile creatures who dress in red and have claws of twigs. They are known as Those We Do Not Speak Of (except when we want to end a designation with a preposition). We see Those We Do Not Speak Of only in brief glimpses, like the water-fixated aliens in ''Signs.'' They look better than the ''Signs'' aliens, who looked like large extras in long underwear, while Those We Do Not, etc., look like their costumes were designed at summer camp.

 

Watch towers guard the periphery of the village, and flares burn through the night. But not to fear: Those We Do, etc., have arrived at a truce. They stay in the forest and the villagers stay in the village. Lucius wants to go into the forest, and petitions the elders, who frown at this desire. Ivy would like to marry Lucius, and tells him so, but he is so reflective and funereal it will take him another movie to get worked up enough to deal with her. Still, they love each other. The village idiot also has a thing for Ivy, and sometimes they gambol together.

 

Something terrible happens to somebody. I dare not reveal what, and to which, and by whom. Edward Walker decides reluctantly to send someone to ''the towns'' to bring back medicine for whoever was injured. And off goes his daughter Ivy, a blind girl walking through the forest inhabited by Those Who, etc. She wears her yellow riding hood, and it takes us a superhuman effort to keep from thinking about Grandmother's House.

 

Solemn violin dirges permeate the sound track. It is autumn, overcast and chilly. Girls find a red flower and bury it. Everyone speaks in the passive voice. The vitality has been drained from the characters; these are the Stepford Pilgrims. The elders have meetings from which the young are excluded. Someone finds something under the floorboards. Wouldn't you just know it would be there, exactly where it was needed, in order for someone to do something he couldn't do without it.

 

Eventually the secret of Those, etc., is revealed. To call it an anticlimax would be an insult not only to climaxes but to prefixes. It's a crummy secret, about one step up the ladder of narrative originality from It Was All a Dream. It's so witless, in fact, that when we do discover the secret, we want to rewind the film so we don't know the secret anymore. And then keep on rewinding, and rewinding, until we're back at the beginning, and can get up from our seats and walk backward out of the theater and go down the up escalator and watch the money spring from the cash register into our pockets.

[razazteca 0]

Villege idiot kills Lucius Hunt because he is jealous and the elders hide the weapons in the church? Its the final thoughts of the dead man right before his funeral?

 

This is my theory #94308509234

[nl5xsk1 0]

All of you talking about this movie has made me want to see it more than all of the ads & hype that I've previously encountered combined.

[JoeDirt 0]

Apparently the ending IS one mentioned here already, and it seems pretty disappointing.

[Downhome 0]

At the Done Deal message board that I frequent, a board about professional screenwriting, one of the more established posters (a screenwriter/journalist himself), said that he has a colleague that went to a press screening, and revealed the ending that he saw. Like I said, it's a very established poster, and would have no reason to lie.

[2GOLD 0]

I have no trouble with Night, but his movies haven't caught me off guard once. Still good films but I'm yet to see him hit me with a surprise "twist" that leaves me speechless.

 

If you didn't know the ending of Sixth Sense after ten minutes, I pity you.

[JoeDirt 0]

I liked Signs, but I hated 6th Sense. The twist is so implausible for SOOOOO many reasons and I just thought it was stupid.

[Guest SP-1]

Even as a Christian, I have trouble drawing parallels between demons and the aliens. Signs is pretty simple predestinationist stuff, IMO. The man loses his faith after his wife died and the invasion helped him to see that God is perfectly in control of everything and still good.

 

 

I'm hoping Village satisfies as the other films have. Shayamalan knows how to build suspense and he's good with characters and getting good performances out of his actors. That's why he's a film maker I follow.

[Downhome 0]

Ain't It Cool News has two new reviews for this film posted.

 

http://www.aint-it-cool-news.com/display.cgi?id=18053