The problem with The Village is that it is trying to be something it is not, mainly a scare-me thriller. Perhaps it is not so much that the film is bad as much as its audience is expecting something else. As a reader of 18 and 19 Century novels, this movie feels right, both in its look and in its performances. The soundtrack is subtle and compliments well the characters.

What is wrong is that The Village, never frightens you and even when it does, the suspension of disbelief is just way too out there for most of us to jump in whole heartedly. The scary woods is deader than skull bones, yet these people live off the land, there has to be animals right? Where’s your occasional squirrel, or Bambi?

I would have to say that I liked this picture better than Signs, even though I thought Signs had better moments. The problem for me is that I hated the ending in Signs and in this movie the ending is perhaps not bad, but definitely the whole center of this movie should have been the romance and not the scary elements.