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Village, The
Touchstone Pictures

Village, The reviews
Critic Score
Metascore: 44 Metascore out of 100
User Score  
5.6 out of 10
based on 40 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
based on 240 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

MPAA RATING: PG-13 for scenes of violence and frightening situations

Starring Bryce Dallas Howard, Joaquin Phoenix, Adrien Brody, William Hurt, Sigourney Weaver, Brendan Gleeson, Cherry Jones, Judy Greer, and Celia Weston

The thrilling tale of an isolated village confronting the astonishing truth that lies just outside its borders. (Touchstone Pictures)


GENRE(S): Drama  |  Horror  |  Suspense/Thriller  
WRITTEN BY: M. Night Shyamalan  
DIRECTED BY: M. Night Shyamalan  
RELEASE DATE: DVD: January 11, 2005 
Video: January 11, 2005 
Theatrical: July 30, 2004 
RUNNING TIME: 115 minutes, Color 
ORIGIN: USA 

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

80
Empire Ian Nathan
Made with such elegance, atmosphere and wonderfully mannered performances it will nestle deep inside your head, refusing to budge. The more you ponder it, the better it becomes.
Read Full Review
75
Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
A third-generation performer, this daughter of actor-director Ron Howard makes a stunning feature debut.
Read Full Review
75
Rolling Stone Peter Travers
The Village, even when its step falters, is on to something more provocative than seeing dead people. Its power, unrelated to digital monsters, comes from the tension building inside the characters.
Read Full Review
75
Boston Globe Wesley Morris
Spellbinding if ponderous.
Read Full Review
75
ReelViews James Berardinelli
For those who like the director's body of work, appreciate "The Twilight Zone," and have a high suspension of disbelief threshold, The Village is likely to satisfy.
Read Full Review
70
The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias
The Village may have finally emptied his usual bag of tricks, but considered on its own merits, its skillful fusion of Grimm fairy-tale horror and pointed social parable find Shyamalan in peak form.
Read Full Review
70
New York Magazine Peter Rainer
The Village is a better movie (than Signs) --probably his best since "The Sixth Sense"--but it indulges Shyamalan's penchant for messianic uplift.
Read Full Review
67
Entertainment Weekly Mark Harris
It gives nothing of the plot away to say that there's a fine line between an ''Aha!'' and an ''Oh, brother!'' Whether you feel The Village crosses that line may hinge on whether you think Shyamalan's screenwriting ability is beginning to lag behind his skill as a director.
Read Full Review
63
Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington
A big, creepy dollhouse of a movie--a sometimes engrossing shocker with a surprise ending that isn't especially shocking or surprising.
Read Full Review
63
USA Today Claudia Puig
The Village emerges as a victim of its own ambitions. At one point, Edward advises Ivy: "Do your very best not to scream." That doesn't require much restraint on our part.
Read Full Review
63
Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach
It doesn't take a genius IQ to figure out the movie's final twist far in advance, leaving the attentive viewer to wonder only about how Shyamalan will pull it off and to hope the movie doesn't turn silly.
Read Full Review
60
The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt
Unlike "The Sixth Sense," the film's key revelation might be too mild to jolt audiences. Some may even feel cheated.
Read Full Review
60
Time Richard Corliss
The film's payoff raises more questions than it answers, which may be Shyamalan's intent in this political parable of fear.
Read Full Review
60
Dallas Observer Gregory Weinkauf
The result is his (Shyamalan's) most meditative and lovingly rendered offering thus far, if also his least fun.
Read Full Review
58
Seattle Post-Intelligencer Paula Nechak
The Village goes up in smoke (and mirrors). It wants to find a profoundness that hints at something deep and dimensional, but it hasn't the courage of conviction to stay on course as an unabashed ode to innocence.
Read Full Review
58
Portland Oregonian Karen Karbo
Thriller is hardly the word for this tedious exercise in clue-hiding.
Read Full Review
50
Washington Post Stephen Hunter
The Village yields a trick ending quite lame, quite tame and quite old; Rod Serling thought of it 40 years ago and he did it better.
Read Full Review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey
Not only is The Village not credible, its shallowness makes it dislikable, a shopworn gothic plot focusing on stereotypical characters with disabilities, with no ambitions beyond playing a simple-minded audience head game.
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50
Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
Shyamalan remains a stilted screenwriter, but Roger Deakins's cinematography is spooky, creepy, eerie all the way.
Read Full Review
50
New York Post Lou Lumenick
Pours on creepy atmosphere, but this dud is too intent on delivering its liberal "message" to actually deliver the kinds of scares it promises in the terrific trailer.
Read Full Review
50
New York Daily News Jack Mathews
The Village is Shyamalan's weakest story, and its ending - whether or not you're surprised by it - is a genuine clinker.
Read Full Review
50
Variety Brian Lowry
A watchable film for awhile that unravels in a muddled last act likely to send many opening-weekend filmgoers home head-scratching and grumbling.
Read Full Review
50
Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
I will tell you what The Village is not: It is not scary. It is not all that interesting. It isn't even much of a movie.
Read Full Review
50
Premiere Aaron Hillis
When the secret is finally divulged, it’s such a letdown that it feels unfairly manipulative to have sat through such agonizing tedium.
Read Full Review
50
The New Yorker Anthony Lane
Shyamalan remains as coolly unstirred by sex as he was in his previous movies--an astounding indifference, given the historical entwining of eros and fright. Even more bizarre is the gradual draining of humor from his work; the anatomy of horror demands a tongue in the cheek to go with the baring of teeth, but much of The Village is a proud and sullen affair.
Read Full Review
40
The New York Times Dana Stevens
The film's ridiculousness would not be so irksome if Mr. Shyamalan did not take his sleight of hand so seriously, if he did not insist on dressing this scary, silly, moderately clever fairy tale in a somber cloak of allegory.
Read Full Review
40
LA Weekly Ella Taylor
This undeniably talented writer-director has been repeating himself with steadily decreasing potency ever since the wonderful "The Sixth Sense," and his latest excursion does nothing to buck the trend.
Read Full Review
40
Film Threat Chad Bixby
Everyone here sounds trapped in a high school staging of “The Crucible,” and after about an hour, this high-toned creature feature wears out its welcome and starts to seem rather boring and pretentious, the two greatest sins any movie can commit.
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40
TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
The film's gotcha! payoff doesn't justify the gloomy journey.
Read Full Review
40
Newsweek David Ansen
The entire solemn, portentous edifice that is The Village collapses of its own fake weight. Just about everything that makes Shyamalan special misfires here.
Read Full Review
30
Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
The real mystery at the heart of M. Night Shyamalan's latest: How does he persuade actors like Sigourney Weaver and Adrien Brody to act in his supremely lame movies?
Read Full Review
30
Village Voice Michael Atkinson
The screwiest yarn yet from Shyamalan's metaphysical-Limburger career project, a non-horror horror film.
Read Full Review
30
Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov
It's exasperating watching so much top-drawer talent wasted in a film that wraps itself up with one of the most preposterous (not to mention obvious) endings the genre has ever seen.
Read Full Review
30
Slate David Edelstein
The photography is excellent! the music is striking! the movie is a stinker!
Read Full Review
30
Chicago Reader Hank Sartin
Every eerily tranquil shot, weirdly elliptical scene, and peculiar line reading contributes to a mood of detachment rather than creeping dread.
Read Full Review
30
Washington Post Desson Thomson
For the most part, the film's a bewildering disappointment.
Read Full Review
30
Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas
It's tedious instead of provocative and so unconvincing as to be preposterous.
Read Full Review
25
San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
The Village seems poised to become as cheesy in its effects as a low-budget horror film. Shyamalan's gracefulness keeps his movie just out of that abyss.
Read Full Review
25
Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
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.
Read Full Review
20
Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
It's bad enough to make parable a four-letter word.

What Our Users Said

Vote Now!The average user rating for this movie is 5.6 (out of 10) based on 240 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Paul F. gave it a9:
What can I say but I really liked this film. I actually do not like horror/suspense films but The Village transcended any such definition by being much more psychological oriented which begged the question of much larger sociological condition. For those who prefer their films coated with candy this is not the film for you. If however you enjoy a thought provoking film that is masterfully acted with a beautiful and believable setting then this films is one of the rare ones. Among other things this film actually made me long for an innocence that living in the modern fast paced world has robbed us of. I can definitely see the allure. But then again the pesky human condition of suffering, and often by our own hand, raises its ugly head. I however was soothed by the love story. What one is willing to go through for true love is a theme I never tire of. And considering Ivy's condition it made it all the more so powerful. It was as if I could feel what it was see was feeling, the fear, love, and sheer will to continue. And by the end I felt uplifted by the results of her trails as well as the difficult choice of the elders, even if it only supposedly occurs in one tiny portion of the world.

[Anonymous] gave it a9:
I can't believe the only reason people don't like this movie is because of the 'twist' at the end. That is not even close to the most important part of the movie! It's a great flick.

Louis's brother gave it a1:
For all you people who were dissmayed at the fact that it wasn't really a thriller, I know how you feel. When I first go the chance to see this movie, was expecting at-the-edge-of-your-seat thrilling events like monster killing or mass murder. But nooooooo, the only slightly exciting parts were in the previews, which in my opinon, was better than the actual movie. The rest of it is just everyday life for people in the 18th century. What I hated the most was the ending. What they say is an , "Astonishing" truth is, in actuallity a big dissapointment. The only money this movie made is a product of flavored false advertising. Don't see the movie and from now on don't entirely trust previews.

Andy gave it a1:
Just horrible. It thinks it's clever but it's just lazy in coming up with a tricky ending.

[Anonymous] gave it an8:
What's frightening about Shymalan's movies is not the monsters / aliens / ghosts. Shymalan turns his thrillers inward and scares us with the thought of what the human mind is capable of. Those who complained that the monsters weren't real have completely missed the point. In reality the monsters are real, they don't lurk in the woods and manifest themsleves by jumping out at us and saying boo. Instead they lurk in our minds and manifest themsleves in the terrible things humans do to each other. For my money that's scarier than any slasher film he could ever come up with.

Sean P. gave it a2:
Yes, believe the reviews. It's a stinker. The reason I'm even bothering to vote is 'cause I noticed James Beraldinelli's review. From what i can remember, this is the only movie he liked that I absolutely hated. Interesting.

Rodney M. gave it a9:
This movie is not ment to be a horror/thriller movie. It creates its own genre. The story has great detail and a great plot. It also scares you with your own fears. A great movie, see it.

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