Warning, this contains spoilers. I like M. Night Shyamalan’s movies with the exception of one; his latest, which is The Village. Now, undoubtedly people will say that his movies have started on the downward spiral since the sensational movie The Sixth Sense. I agree and disagree. Compared to The Sixth Sense, his other movies aren’t as good and there is no way that they could ever be. The Sixth Sense was a blessing and curse for Night. From now on, all his other movies will be judged to that standard.

With all that being said, I honestly think that The Village is a Class A turd. It’s not a turd compared to The Sixth Sense; it’s a turd all by itself. Billed as a scary movie set in an 1800’s village surrounded by a forest full of monsters it doesn’t deliver. It turns out that the Halloween episode of Charlie Brown is scarier than this.

Some of the characters in the flick shine and some don’t even sparkle. Adrien Brody as the mentally challenged Noah Percy shines as does Bryce Dallas Howard as the blind, love stricken Ivy Walker. Joaquin Phoenix’s portrayal of Lucius Hunt deserves some praise and at other times you forget that he is even there. William Hurt’s character Edward Walker…yawn, Sigourney Weaver’s character Alice Hunt…yawn. The rest of the cast is pretty much forgettable probably as they were meant to be. 

The story takes place in the village of Covington in 1897. The forest that surrounds the village supposedly has monsters that are called “Those who we do not speak of.” No one from the village ever leaves Covington for fear that the monsters will get them.
From here its a bore-fest of a love triangle between Noah, Ivy, and Lucius. Just when you are about to checkout of the movie mentally, you are given a glimpse of “Those who we do not speak of” which looks like a hunched over person in a red cloak with spines coming out of his back. We go back to a whole bunch of exposition and nonsense only to be awakened from our comas by a sighting of the monster again.

After the last sighting of the monster Ivy and Lucius finally say that they love each other and that makes Noah a pissed off crazy person. What follows is actually one of the best scenes of the entire movie. Noah comes to see Lucius and Lucius lets him in. You can see that Noah is hiding his right hand in his pocket and you cant help wonder what he has in it. Lucius turns his back on him and when Noah doesnt say anything he turns around. The camera pans to a close up of Noahs red, teary eyes and then to Lucius dumbstruck face. For a few seconds you have no idea whats going on the camera slows pans down and you see Noah take the knife out of Lucius’ gut. After that Noah stabs him at least one more time for good measure.
To make a terribly long story short, the town finds Lucius and the town doctor says he can’t do anything without medicine from the mysterious towns that all of the elders came from. Ivy’s father finally breaks down and tells her the truth because he sees how much she is in love with Lucius.

Her father brings her to a shed where there are costumes of “Those who we do not speak of.” Basically the town elders were lying so that no one left Covington. They send Ivy off to “The Towns” to get medicine that will help Lucius. This is preposterous. Why on earth would they send a blind girl when her father could have gone and come back before anyone noticed? Its one of the many times that you will roll your eyes at this movie. It turns out that Noah has actually known about the secret for the longest time since he found one of the costumes under a floorboard. He escapes solitary confinement (which is just a room), gets one of those monster getups and tries to kill Ivy but instead falls into a pit (after she sidesteps him) and dies; more rolling of the eyes.

Ivy makes it to a wall and then climbs over it. There she encounters a…dum dum dum a Hummer and a security guard. He helps her get whatever she needs and she goes back and saves the day.

Basically here is what happened. The town elders lived in present day and they had bad things happen to them. Edward Walker’s father was a billionaire but someone killed him and then hung himself in the closet. Edward inherited his fortune. In therapy he found other people that were similarly traumatized and he made a plan. With all this money, he made a wild life sanctuary that they could live in and pretend it was 19th century. They made up stories about monsters so that no one would leave. Feel cheated? I did.