Review of The Damned

Simon and Joan (Macdonald Carey and Shirley Anne Field), a couple running from the woman's violent brother King (Oliver Reed) stumble across a group of strange, ice-cold children living in an underground bunker, who have no knowledge of the outside world and who are monitored by a ruthless government agency. The characters are interesting and the story is entertaining despite the 'science' underlying the plot being implausible, bordering on nonsense. The film has an adult, almost disturbing edge, opening with a scene of Joan 'picking up' Simon, who is twice her age, only to set him up for a brutal mugging by her brother (whose incestuous obsession is barely disguised) and his gang of rockers. Although the story does not elaborate on the provenance of the children beyond an 'accident', their subsequent treatment and the cold-bloodedness of the people overseeing them is clearly a critique of conscienceless science in the 'national interest'. Although they date the film, the scenes around the beach town of Weymouth and the 'Black Leather Rock' leitmotif associated with King's thugs are nice touches in a very well made, if somewhat fanciful, cautionary tale. Based on a 1960 novel called 'The Children of Light', the title was likely changed to cash in on the success of 'Village of the Damned' (1960) (this supposition is supported by lurid posters referring to the children as 'unseen evil' and implying that they have glowing white-eyes like the murderous Midwich moppets, neither of which is true). The British film is directed by black-listed American auteur Joseph Losey and although shot in the early 1960s, the film's release was delayed until 1963 in England (as 'The Damned') and until 1965 (as 'These are the Damned') in the US, likely for political reasons. All in all, one of the better British science fiction films to come out of the 1960s.