Contentar Best movie of this year hands down!

AutCuddly Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,

ChanFamous I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

Scarlet The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Rainey Dawn Simon Wells is an American tourist and falls for a young lady named Joan. Joan has many problems, one of her biggest problems is her brother King that is the leader of a youth gang. King disliked Simon, Joan ended up on Simon's boat and they landed on a military island. Simon ends up on the island searching for Simon and Joan. They end up running into a pack of very polite but strange children. Prying into what is going on, the 3 adults learn the kids are the subject of a government experiment.It's an artsy fartsy film with with an underlying social commentary of what was going on during the time era (namely the youth gangs). I found it an okay film - it's not awful. It was slow and draggy at times other times sorta faster paced. The film took a long while to get to the heart of the matter which are the children in the facility... that messed up the film for me.I agree that Oliver Reed was a very nice looking man and he did played the role of King quite well - he was really the highlight of the entire movie.6/10

wes-connors Following his divorce, retired American insurance executive MacDonald Carey (as Simon Wells) goes on a holiday boating trip along the rocky coast of Weymouth, England. On the promenade, he sees sexually arousing Shirley Anne Field (as Joan) saunter by with come hither hips. They quickly decide to copulate, but she turns out to be part of a plot to beat-up and rob the middle-aged Mr. Carey. Having second thoughts, Ms. Field decides to leave the black leather motorcycle gang led by darkly handsome brother Oliver Reed (as King) and hops on Carey's boat. They run away from Mr. Reed and hide in a cliff-side bungalow. Passionately possessive of his wayward sister, Reed follows the couple in hot pursuit. The trio finally meet-up in a hidden cave which houses nine 11-year-old children. Their guardian is dictator-like Alexander Knox (as Bernard), who is seeing attractive sculptress Viveca Lindfors (as Freya Neilson)...The young children have a horrifying secret...There appear to be two disconnected story lines, here. The first resembles a 1950s juvenile delinquent film, which might be described as age versus rebellious youth. This is layered with, and eventually replaced by, an apocalyptic science fiction film. Both have subplots. Directed with some flair by Joseph Losey, "The Damned" would have been better if more connections were made. The vague ones are intriguing. The children wonder how nine of them are going to copulate; they are an uneven number. The main adult players also form an uneven number, with incest playing a part. The girl Rachel Clay (as Victoria) assumes a leadership role among the young children. The boy Kit Williams (as Henry) obviously parallels the delinquent Reed. With stronger threading, the whole picture could have been weaved into something much more worthwhile. James Bernard's music, especially the "Black Leather Rock" theme, is very catchy.****** The Damned (5/19/63) Joseph Losey ~ MacDonald Carey, Shirley Anne Field, Oliver Reed, Alexander Knox

Spikeopath The Damned (AKA: These Are The Damned) is directed by Joseph Losey and adapted to screenplay by Evan Jones from the novel The Children of Light written by H.L. Lawrence. It stars Macdonald Carey, Shirley Anne Field, Oliver Reed, Alexander Knox, Viveca Lindfors and Walter Gotell. Music is by James Bernard and cinematography by Arthur Grant.The South Coast of England, and a middle aged American tourist, a Teddy Boy gang leader and his troubled sister are thrust together into a deadly scenario deep below the cliffs of Weymouth...Blacklisted by Hollywood, Joseph Losey moved to Britain to continue his artistic leanings. 1963 saw the release of two Losey movies, the much lauded The Servant and also The Damned, the latter of which was finished in 1961 but held back for reasons that are not exactly clear. As it transpires, The Damned is something of an under seen gem, a unique picture that defies genre classification, one of Hammer Films' oddest productions but all the more brilliant for it.From the off it should be stated that this is not a film for those wishing to be cheered up, from a brutal mugging at the start to a finale that will haunt your dreams, pessimism and bleakness pervades the narrative. This is in the vein of The Quatermass series of films, tinged with a touch of John Wyndham's Midwich Cuckoos, yet for the fist part of the film there's no clue as to where the narrative will take you. The back drop is a sunny and vibrant seaside town (Weymouth one of my favourite British resorts), an irritatingly catchy tune (Black Leather Rock) is being sung as we follow the meeting of the principal characters. From here you think this is a film about teenage angst, a Black Rebel Motorcycle Club themed picture, where the perils of gang youth is born and the divide between the young and the old is caustically dissected. Yet this is not the case at all, this is merely a cataclysmic meeting of integrity and troubled souls that's going somewhere terribly sad, the vagaries of fate dealing its deadly hand.Losey then instills the picture with potent characterisations and striking imagery as we head towards what will be a fascinating and clinically cruel last third of the film. The brother and sister relationship between King and Joan is drip fed with smart dialogue, we don't need it spelled out, but we know that from King's side of things it's badly unhealthy. In the middle is Simon, trying to build a relationship with Joan under trying circumstances. At first it's hard to accept a "clearly too old" Simon as a romantic partner for a sultry Joan, but as back stories are dangled it's not inconceivable that Joan would seek solace in the arms of an older man.The Children of Light.On the outer edges, for a while, are Bernard (Knox) and Freya (Lindfors), he's a scientist, she's a sculptress, they themselves are part of a weird relationship. He's mysterious and soon to become the focal point of a terrible secret, she's eccentric and spends her time at her cliff top studio crafting weird sculptures, the latter of which Losey gleefully enjoys framing to keep the atmosphere edgy, the images are lasting and used to great impact as The Damned reveals its hand, and what a hand it is. Enter the science fiction, enter the government and their shifty dalliances, enter the children, the children of light...It's a socko final third of cinema, both narratively and in viewing Losey's skill at creating striking compositions (while he garners impressive performances from his cast as well, especially Lindfors). It becomes thrilling yet deeply profound as it spins towards its bleak finale. It can be argued that its core sentiment (message) is heavily handled, and that Carey is a touch unsuitable as an all action hero type, but the film rises above these minor issues. For once the camera pulls away from the cliffs to reveal a swanky seaside town, the cries of children still ringing in our ears, you know you have watched something pretty special. 9/10One of Hammer's unsung classics, The Damned can be found on The Icons of Suspense Hammer Collection. Region 1, it appears with five other films, two of which - Cash On Demand/Never Take Sweets from A Stranger - are also little gems waiting to be discovered. Great transfers for viewing pleasure, I can't recommend this collection highly enough.

Vornoff-3 A delightful piece of Cold War cynicism about a small group of radioactive children being raised by the British government to repopulate a future post-nuclear Earth. It opens with some beautiful footage of 60s Dorset, with Teddy Boys ruling the streets and the instant hit "Black Leather" blaring on the soundtrack. Even the mandatory love story has a cynical edge – the hapless middle-aged burnout falls for the shill who sets him up to get his arse kicked by the Teds, and she, hopeless and soapless herself, can't find anything better to do than fall for him. No one is right in this movie, and ultimately, we are all the Damned.