The Village (2004) on Netflix
PG-1320041h 48mDramaMysteryRomance
A remote Pennsylvania village lives in fear of nameless creatures in the woods. When illness kills a young villager, Lucius Hunt asks the elders to let him cross the forest for medicine.
- Netflix3.3/5
- IMDb6.6/10299,423 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes43%
Trailer
Plot summary
In a small, remote 19th-century Pennsylvania village, the people live in fear of humanoid creatures they call Those We Do Not Speak Of, who are said to inhabit the surrounding woods. Watchtowers and poles with oil lamps line the perimeter, and the color red is banned because it attracts the creatures. After a young villager dies of illness, Lucius Hunt asks the elders for permission to travel through the woods and bring back medical supplies from the towns. They refuse. His widowed mother, Alice, questions his wish to see the towns, which the elders call wicked. The elders keep their own counsel and each keeps a locked black box. Lucius ventures into the woods on his own, then tells the elders it was safe. Skinned animal carcasses soon appear in the village.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Village (2004)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
SPOILER
Simon & Schuster, publishers of the 1995 book Running Out of Time by Margaret Peterson Haddix, claimed the film had taken ideas from it: both have a 19th-century village that is actually a park in the present day, young heroines searching for medical supplies, and adult leaders keeping children from the truth. No lawsuit was ever filed.SPOILER
In April and May 2004, several of the lead actors were called back to the set, and the film's final ending differs from the ending in the stolen version of the script that surfaced a year earlier.- The film was originally titled The Woods, but the name was changed because a film in production by director Lucky McKee, The Woods, already had that title.
- The script was stolen over a year before the film was released, prompting many "pre-reviews" of the film on several Internet film sites and much fan speculation about plot details.
- The village set was built in its entirety in one field outside Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, with an adjacent field holding a temporary sound stage; production started in October 2003 and was delayed because some scenes needing fall foliage could not be shot in a late fall season.
- The film's score was composed by James Newton Howard and features solo violinist Hilary Hahn; it was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Score, but lost to Finding Neverland.
- In France, Cahiers du cinéma praised the movie, putting it in second place (tied) in their 2004 annual top list, and Le Monde described it as a "horrific post-9/11 fable".
