It is the late nineteenth century and in a quiet, secluded valley there exists a village. The villagers are simple folk, living entirely off the land and enjoying the simplicity of their subsistent lifestyle. Watching over the welfare of the villagers is a small group of mature residents known as The Elders, whose wisdom is unquestioned and whose instructions are followed without question. But The Village is not quite the haven that it at first purports to be.

After the death of one the villagers’ children, Lucius Hunt (the son of one of the elders) requests permission to leave the village and make his way to one of the infamous towns, in order to obtain medicines and drugs that are otherwise missing from the village. His request is denied but his curiosity still gets the better of him and one morning he ventures into the forbidden woods, only to be spotted by one of the feared creatures. His actions do not go without consequence. One of the creatures is later sighted at a lookout post and is seen walking through the village as the terrified inhabitants scramble for cover. Red marks appear on the villagers’ doors and livestock is found skinned and discarded in the fields. A corner has been turned and for the inhabitants of The Village, things may never be the same again. But were they ever quite what they believed them to be?

Listed under at least four different genres on the Internet Movie Database, The Village is indeed many things. It is a love story – a classic tale of adventure and misfortune brought about by the mutual adoration felt by two people. It is a mystery, woven around secrets, lies and a deception that runs far deeper than you could probably imagine. It is a chiller, peppered with shocks designed to make you jump and attempts to unnerve and unsettle. But for me above all else, it is a drama, a morality play – an investigation into the power of belief. Is truth based on belief or fact?

As a mystery, it is also quite effective, if only because the mysterious village and its rather odd inhabitants soon intrigue you. The story creeps along and weaves its way in and out of the characters like a tendril of fog and leads you first one way and then another. The film is seldom very exciting, comforting itself instead with short bursts of action followed by characterisation and intrigue. It is, ultimately, quite unsettling. It isn’t really a horror film, containing no gore or horror, as we would expect and only providing shocks for those who are easily shocked. This is perhaps unusual because this is the main direction in which the marketing machine was pointed. But rest assured that The Village is not a horror film – the 12A certificate should be enough to convince you of this.

This is a huge shame, because conceptually, I actually bought into the whole idea and decided that I could rationalise what was happening. Much of the story is based on real life in that you can easily find people that live their lives in the same way as the inhabitants of The Village. Isolation, subsistence and superstition are certainly not rare. The real shame was that a fundamentally interesting premise was employed in the way that it was. There is nothing worse than being cheated. Your feelings of satisfaction, triumph and contentment are immediately unsettled by the revelation that someone is not who or what they purport to be. This was the effect that The Village had on me. As I left the cinema, I felt as though I had been manipulated into watching something, indeed BELIEVING in something that really wasn’t what it appeared to be. Arguably, of course, it could be said that Shyamalan should be credited for being able to do this, but he didn’t achieve this on his own. He was aided by clever marketing, well-placed trailers, advertisements and a raft of Hollywood positioning that led us all to an inevitable place. I can admire the skills of the writer, but ultimately, I’d also have to condemn him for selling his soul in pursuit of his own reputation in such a way.