David Farnor | On 02, Jun 2022

Village of the Damned. The 1960 film got its title right when it adapted John Wyndham’s 1957 novel The Midwich Cuckoos for the screen. David Farr’s new take on the tale, which keeps the book’s original title, may not have the same ominous ring to it, but it doesn’t skimp on the spooky, unnerving ideas at the story’s chilling heart.

The sci-fi story follows the aftermath of an unexplained blackout at the titular British village. Not just the lights and TVs go out – the people faint too. Fast forward a couple of months and something sinister emerges: all the women of child-bearing age discover that they have become pregnant. In time, these children grow up to become said cuckoos, ageing faster than normal, learning more quickly than expected and displaying unusual abilities. The cast of young kids brilliantly tap into the genre’s classic fear of children, managing to be precocious, eerie and blankly detached without being annoying – their empty stares are unnerving enough before you get the fact that their eyes light up with a magnolia glow.

There’s a rich, disturbing vein of terror in the increasingly unnatural parent-child dynamics that unfold, with question of who has the authority to control who likely to keep you even more awake at night than the cuckoos in their human beds. But Farr’s script, which slows things down and takes its time to really dig into the themes on offer, has us gripped, moved and weirded out long before we get to that point. The superb opening episodes are a masterclass in storytelling, steadily drip-feeding character and plot but grounding the whole thing in emotion.

What begins as a situation in which we know as little as the people in the village soon becomes one in which we know even minutiae of their individual journeys. There’s politician Stewart (Mark Dexter), who is having an affair with Amrita, someone on his campaign team. There’s Sam (Ukweli Roach) and Zoe (Aisling Loftus), who have just moved to the area and are trying for a baby. There’s Jodie (Lara Rossi), who’s visiting her sister after a break-up. There’s estate agent Mary-Anne, who hasn’t had sex for years.

Unexpected pregnancies coming into each of these very different situations many very different things for the people involved, and Farr’s achievement is to explore modern society’s attitudes towards parenthood with a huge amount of nuance and complexity. Spearheading that are our two investigators, DCI Paul Haynes (Max Beesley), the local police detective, who teams up with family psychologist Dr Susannah Zellaby (Keeley Hawes), whose own daughter, Cassie (Synnøve Karlsen), is keen to keep her unborn child. Hawes and Beesley anchor the twisting, turning mystery with heartfelt turns that convey just how high the personal stakes are for all involved, for varying reasons.

From paternity tests that shatter dreams of biological fathers to the excitement of others somehow bypassing medical impossibilities, the range of reactions and consequences keep paying off in new layers of hope, affection and frustration. As people try to follow through on the situation in the conventional manner, such as presuming illegitimate children have come from an affair, the lingering reality is that the whole village is dealing with an unprecedented trauma, and this six-part series brilliantly navigates the collision course between expectation and reality. The result is as tense as it is thoughtful, finding fresh dread and renewed anxiety in a what-if scenario that has lost none of its potency. Prepare for this one to be nesting in your living room for weeks to come.

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