‘After a dark force renders unconscious the natives of Midwich for six hours, 10 pregnant women give birth to 10 identical kids who are uncommonly brainy, emotionless, telepathically linked and sinister.’

Carpenter’s remake of the 1960 classic. Of course, with this being a remake, certain critics were already crossing their arms and rolling their eyes (a bit like the reaction of music critics to a cover version album) and so this received largely negative reviews and was even nominated for a Razzie (which, in my world, is actually a mark of excellence as so many of my favourite films have also been nominated or won).

Is Village of the Damned worthy of all of this negativity? Nope. It’s pretty good, interesting to see Carpenter take on another remake of a classic and is photographed beautifully.

Christopher Reeve is very good, Kirstie Alley feels strangely surplus to needs. The kids are fantastic.

Yes, this isn’t a patch on the original but is still an entertaining and gorier update. Never listen to the critics. And treat Razzie nominations as a list of films you need to see pronto.

3 out of 5 stars