(Welcome to Tales from the Box Office, our column that examines box office miracles, disasters, and everything in between, as well as what we can learn from them.)
“I had much higher hopes.” Those are the words of “Star Wars” icon Mark Hamill when asked by the folks at the Alamo Drafthouse what he thought of 1995’s “Village of the Damned.” Hamill also noted that “The Wolf Rilla one is still the best.” Indeed, Rilla’s 1960 version of the story is regarded as one of the best horror movies of the ’60s to this day. Unfortunately, despite the remake being put in the hands of an unquestioned horror master, it didn’t have the same impact.
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The horror master in question is John Carpenter, one of the best horror directors of all time thanks to his work on movies such as “Halloween” and “The Thing,” among many others. Carpenter has even been dubbed “the horror master” and it’s a title nobody questions, despite the fact that he hasn’t directed a feature film in nearly 15 years. But this remake, which he helmed 15 years before mostly leaving the director’s chair behind, marked a real turning point for the heralded filmmaker. It was dead on arrival and it soon became clear that Carpenter’s best days were behind him.
In this week’s Tales from the Box Office, we’re looking back at Carpenter’s “Village of the Damned” in honor of its 30th anniversary. We’ll go over how the movie came to be, how Carpenter ended up being the man behind the camera, what happened when it hit theaters, what happened in the aftermath of its release, and what we can learn from it all these years later. Let’s dig in, shall we?
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The movie: Village of the Damned (1995)
The film as we know it takes place in the tiny village of Midwich, where something is terribly wrong. Unseen forces invade the quiet town, and 10 women mysteriously find themselves pregnant. Dr. Alan Chaffee (Christopher Reeve) and government scientist Dr. Susan Verner (Kirstie Alley) join forces when the women simultaneously give birth to pale, white-haired children with fiery eyes. Supernatural horror ensues.
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Carpenter was coming off of 1994’s “In the Mouth of Madness,” which was not a hit but has become a cult favorite, and his 1993 anthology “Body Bags.” Overall, the ’90s were a mixed period for the filmmaker whose output in the ’80s could rival arguably any director in terms of sheer pound-for-pound quality. To that end, Carpenter’s “Memoirs of the Invisible Man” was another theatrical bust in 1992.
It’s believed it killed his planned remake of “Creature from the Black Lagoon,” which was well underway at Universal. That’s key when it comes to teeing up what happened here. In the case of “Village of the Damned,” it was never a project that the filmmaker had a passion for, which is not typically a good way to make a movie. In a 2011 interview with Vulture, Carpenter revealed his thoughts on the remake, which may well have set the tone for the whole project:
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“I’m really not passionate about ‘Village of the Damned.’ I was getting rid of a contractual assignment, although I will say that it has a very good performance from Christopher Reeve, so there’s some value in it.”
Village of the Damned was a key role for Christopher Reeve
Carpenter went from a remake he was very passionate about to one that he was not so passionate about to fulfill a contract with Universal Pictures. Lawrence Bachmann, who was the head of MGM when the original was made, had talked for years about remaking it. ”I couldn’t really do the book properly then,” Bachmann said to The New York Times in early 1981. ”20 years ago, you couldn’t talk about abortion; censorship didn’t even allow you to mention impregnation. This time, we’ll do it right.” David Himmelstein (“Power,” “Talent for the Game”) penned the version that ultimately got made.
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Nearly a decade later, the job fell to Carpenter. Enthused or not, he had a job to do. One thing that he managed to do very well was assemble a killer cast, which included Mark Hamill as the town minister, ultimately a bad guy. The ensemble was headed up by Kirstie Alley (“Cheers”) and Christopher Reeve, known best for his role in Richard Donner’s “Superman.”
Reeve was the doctor who would need to contend with a village full of evil children, played by Thomas Dekker, Lindsey Haun, and several others. By this time, Reeve had tried to move on from his days as the Man of Steel. Unfortunately, “Village of the Damned” would be his last theatrically released movie before his near-fatal fall from a horse in 1995 that left him paralyzed from the neck down. Unbeknownst to Reeve and all involved, the film would take on unintended importance thanks to real-world circumstances.
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Carpenter’s ’80s hits were largely low-budget affairs, with movies like “Halloween” and “The Fog” turning huge profits against a minimal investment. Those days were long behind him, with Universal budgeting this remake at $22 million before marketing expenses. Unfortunately, it would prove to be a poor investment.
The financial journey
To put it kindly, critics weren’t exactly kind to the movie in its day. It still ranks very low in John Carpenter’s overall filmography, so far as the majority is concerned. Even so, Universal had invested a sizable amount of money in the remake, and they had to try to recoup that investment. The marketing leaned heavily on the “creepy kids killing people” thing. Understandably so. But those creepy kids couldn’t save this movie from its fate.
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“Village of the Damned” hit theaters on the weekend of April 28, 1995 in what used to be kind of a no man’s land during that pre-summer window. The film opened against Ice Cube’s now classic comedy “Friday” ($6.5 million), which landed at number two on the charts behind “While You Were Sleeping” ($10.4 million), which was in its second weekend. Carpenter’s remake had to settle for fifth place with a not-so-great $3.2 million, barely ranking above Disney’s “A Goofy Movie,” which was in its fourth weekend of release.
It was a bad start and, sad to say, things didn’t get any better. By the time Denzel Washington’s “Crimson Tide” arrived in early May to help kick off the summer, Carpenter’s contractual obligation had already fallen off the charts entirely. “Village of the Damned” wrapped up its run with just $9.4 million domestically.
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No international numbers were reported, but overseas box office wasn’t as important then as it is today for every single studio movie. But international audiences also couldn’t be depended on to bail out a given picture when it fell short at the box office. Universal had to rely on home video and eventual cable revenue to try and get this one out of the red.
Village of the Damned was the beginning of the end for director John Carpenter
Asked in that same Vulture piece if the failure of “Village of the Damned” had any impact on his career, Carpenter responded in true Carpenter fashion saying, “None. It didn’t have any effect whatsoever.” While that may be true in terms of whether or not it hurt Carpenter’s feelings, it would be hard to argue that his career as a director recovered in the years that followed.
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Carpenter followed this up with the big-budget flop “Escape from L.A.,” a sequel to his much-beloved “Escape from New York. He then returned to his horror roots with “Vampires” in 1998, which was by no means a success theatrically but did spawn two DTV sequels, so it was certainly a success by some measures.
After that, Carpenter directed the colossal flop that was 2001’s “Ghost of Mars” starring Jason Statham. That is the filmmaker’s only full-throated theatrical release to make less money at the box office than “Village of the Damned.” On that note, Carpenter’s final theatrical effort was “The Ward,” which was released in the U.S. in summer 2011 and hardly registered at the box office, but that one might as well have been a direct-to-DVD play.
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In any event, what followed for Carpenter after this ’95 flop wasn’t greener pastures.
Village of the Damned had a second life years later
Despite focusing a lot on music, having provided the score for the most recent “Halloween” trilogy as well as movies like “Firestarter,” he hasn’t directed a feature film in 15 years. While this particular movie didn’t end his career, it was in many ways the beginning of the end for him as a feature director.
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It’s not all bad news, though. The funny thing about the horror genre is that it often lends itself to re-evaluation years later. “Village of the Damned” has been subject to such re-analysis in recent years, with /Film highlighting it as a poorly-reviewed ’90s horror movie worth watching. The folks at Scream Factory also gave the film a 4K Ultra HD release in 2024, suggesting that the audience for it has grown in recent years. From Hammil’s compelling performance to the significance it took on in Reeves’ filmography, this one has found a second life beyond its initial failure.
It also seems like the franchise may not be totally dead either. It’s admittedly been a few years but in 2020 it was reported that a “Village of the Damned” TV series was in the works from David Farr (“The Night Manager”). Whether or not that’s still happening is unclear, but what is clear is that this remake didn’t permanently spoil the property.
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The lessons contained within
It’s probably only a matter of time before another adaptation happens in some way, shape, or form. That, in some way, gets to the heart of the matter here, which is something I discuss not infrequently in this column. Is the box office important? Absolutely. If you direct a certain number of high-profile flops in a row, it’s going to be tough to get another movie made. Is it the be-all, end-all? Absolutely not.
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Clearly, “Village of the Damned” has enjoyed some sort of life beyond its original release 30 years ago. It’s certainly a shame that Carpenter didn’t get to conclude his directing career on a higher note. Though I would challenge fans of his work to watch his “Masters of Horror” episode “Cigarette Burns” as evidence that he still had the juice in his later years behind the camera.
Therein lies the other point. Carpenter, by his own admission, had no passion for the material. Making a movie is very hard. Nobody is going to argue that Carpenter didn’t do his job, but hiring a guy like that to fill a contractual obligation isn’t the best way to set something up for success. So, if Carpenter ever does come out of retirement (for “The Thing 2” perhaps?), his heart would need to be in it.
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In an era when success at the box office is more uncertain, that should be a prerequisite for any director working on any studio film.
