A 1900s-era community in Pennsylvania lives in a land surrounded by a forest inhabited by mysterious, dangerous creatures who are kept at bay by elaborate rituals and an ancient truce with the village elders; the villagers stay out of the forest, and the creatures stay out of the village. But when Ivy Walker's close friend is brought to the brink of death, she volunteers to save him by traversing the forest and getting medecines from the surrounding towns. Stars Bryce Dallas Howard, Joaquin Phoenix, William Hurt, and Adrien Brody. Directed and written by M. Night Shyamalan in 2004.
Critically, The Village was generally viewed as Shyamalan losing his touch. The twist (that the community, despite its turn-of-the-century trappings, actually exists in modern isolation and that the creatures are a myth to keep the young villagers from leaving) didn't creep up on audiences in the same way it did in his earlier films, with many guessing it based off the trailer alone, robbing it of much of its gravitas when the veil was lifted in the movie itself. This is coupled with Shyamalan's cameo which pretty much serves as an unnecessary exposition that lays out all the details of how the twist "could work," which only serves to suggest that it wouldn't. The Village was a film that would have benefited by another writer's temperance, and suffered from Shyamalan's attempt to essentially fool his audience. But the movie is nevertheless well-acted, still scary, and the characters have a depth and emotional weight to them that makes it an ostensibly good watch. The cast is flush with skill, with many of the supporting cast played by talented character actors, and it also has a good twist of plot (subverting Lucius with Ivy as the protagonist) which gets quickly overtaken by a looming twist of premise.
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