User reviews

A lot of great horror films were produced by Hammer Studios, and The Damned certainly ranks up there both as one of the studios best, and as one of the weirdest. The film is a mix of drama, thriller, horror and sci-fi and is inventive and refreshing in the way it plays out and I guarantee that if you go into this film without first finding out what it's about, you'll never guess where it will take you! The plot structure basically has two main threads to it and neither one is related to the other, but the film pulls them together well. The first plot we are introduced to focuses on Joan, a young woman who gets involved with an American tourist. He gets beaten up by a gang of thugs and it soon transpires that Joan is the sister of the leader of them! The two run away with the angry brother and his gang hot on their tails. The second side of the plot concerns nine children who are being brought up in isolation inside a secret military base as they have somehow been born radioactive. The two plots combine when the American and his girl stumble into the base with the brother after them.

This film was always in danger of becoming messy considering how the story changes dramatically half way through, but it actually flows really well and the story manages to keep the first plot running even when the second one takes centre stage. The themes of the story do get lost somewhat under what we are directly seeing on screen, but 'The Damned' is a very fitting title as the movie deals with a situation born out of the need for a contingency plan in case of nuclear war. The fact that the plot focuses on both sanctioned and unsanctioned criminals makes it more interesting. The film is also very haunting; the children themselves echo those in the classic Village of the Damned and the gloomy plot line gives off its own formidable atmosphere, which is reinforced well by the way the children are treated in their prison/home. The central cast is excellent with Shirley Anne Field and Macdonald Carey getting good support from the always memorable Oliver Reed. The children give some of the best performances in the film and manage to capture what you would expect of children in their situation very well indeed. Overall, The Damned is one of Hammer's most strange and surreal films; but it marks a welcome change and it's not a film I will forget in a hurry. Don't miss out on this one!

Very intriguing film to watch. One must consider it was made during the era of the Cold War to begin with so the situation implied probably didn't seem as implausible in its time. One of the earliest films to portray a secret government organization up to no-good unawares to ordinary citizens. Would have benefitted if more time had been given to the children involved here as then their plight might affect us as and audience even more. Still it's a nice if not fully successful effort to put a thoughtful science fiction tale on film. Teen Gang side-story works mostly to take away the focus from the kids and was probably a mistake although it did give Oliver Reed a good role.

I saw this recently on a late night "British Film Celebration" series, showing various odds and sods of yester-year. In some ways I wished I had videoed it now, as thinking about it afterwards (and thinking about it is certainly something you'll do)there's clearly something going on with the characterisation that was far more important than lets on at first. A second viewing was perhaps needed, certainly the characters don't seem quite fleshed out and when thinking about it I was wondering if that was the point. But here's what I mean by the characters:

• The spiritually hurt "old/young" man played (and in fairness, perhaps miscast) by MacDonald Carey, desperate in some way to "complete" himself; the numerous old English establishment/power figures, feeling out of time and place, as if powerless to deal with the worlds changes, still "in" power but somehow no longer; the devout artist, passionate about her work, which in itself is a little dehumanising (there is a great, heart rending scene, where she cries in agony as Oliver Reed destroys some of her art work, that will stay with me for a while); the young girl unable to "become" what she wants, perhaps of her "possessive" brother, who really genuinely wants to protect her from the evils of the world; the emotionless children, full of potential but ultimately radioactive and poison, and most of all the "angry young men" lead masterfully by Oliver Reed, They represent the irrational human, simply wanting to "be" and nothing more.

While trying to follow some sort of standard narrative, there seems to be something else going on in this film that is talking about a far wider, human theme with actually makes it much more of a "pure" science fiction/philosophical film than it maybe gets credit for. Yes, you can look at it at face value and ultimately see it as nothing more than a curious English B movie, but...

The film moves very slowly, but its shift from what looks to be a critique on teenagers turns into a science fiction film with a very gritty message about human survival and with its grim ending its something you tend not to see much in films, either then or now.

Perhaps I am reading FAR too much into the film, but cold war polemic aside there seems to be something far more rhetorical being said about "radiation" and the death of humanity/culture/civility. There seems to be comments made on how the individual deals with a world that can face potential catastrophic change at any moment which will deny you your very humanity and dignity. I'm not saying the film does this successfully, but nonetheless it's a very interesting "attempt" and well worth a little look.

Oh...and as for the "Black Leather, Black Leather, Smash, Smash, Smash" song. Well, it's interesting... Maybe there's a comment being made there too...about inanity? Perhaps I need to get out more.

(THESE ARE) THE DAMNED is now being seen in the U.S. in a restored print that has been making the rounds (I caught up with it at the 27th Annual Boston Science Fiction Film Marathon & Festival (for info go to: www.sf.theboard.net) on February 17th.

After having seen it only in edited form on late night TV decades ago, it was fascinating to see the exquisite B&W photography on the big screen (with footage not in the TV prints). Although it was made under the Hammer Films banner, THE DAMNED is not a typical SF picture by any means. Expatriate director Joseph Losey set out to make a social parable more than an SF thriller. He succeeds in showing how society's increasing violence and callousness on the streets could lead to the horrible thought of "breeding" radioactive children in the government in order to survive an inevitable (?) nuclear war. The moral is both, of the time & time-less. Of course, modern audiences may feel that the end of the Cold War makes such a tale outdated and even silly - but are we only fooling ourselves?

"Black Leather, Black Leather....."

The middle-aged American Simon Wells (Macdonald Carey) sails in his boat to Weymouth and stumbles with the twenty year-old Joan (Shirley Anne Field) on the street. He believes that she is a prostitute but she is actually part of a scheme of a motorcycle gang to rob tourists. Simon is brutally beaten up by her brother King (Oliver Reed) and his gang. The policemen find the wounded Simon and take him to a bar to recover, where he meets the military Bernard (Alexander Knox) and his mistress Freya Neilson (Viveca Lindfors). On the next morning, Joan challenges King and meets Simon in his boat, and King and his gang hunts Simon down. Joan and Simon spend the night together in an isolated house and on the morning, they are located by the gang. They try to flee and stumble in a top-secret military facility managed by Bernard. They are helped by children and brought to their hideout in a cave. King falls in the sea while chasing the couple and is also helped by a boy and brought to the same place. Soon Joan finds that the children are cold as if they were dead. What is the secret of the children and the military staff?

"The Damned" is a creepy sci-fi with a very dark and hopeless conclusion in the summit of the Cold War. In this period, people were paranoid with nuclear attack and the British research in understood by those that lived in that period. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Malditos" ("Damned")

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.

These are the Damned, also known as simply The Damned, is a very special movie. it was made by hammer, but doesn't feel much like a hammer film. it was directed by an American named joseph Losey, who moved to England in an attempt to find work after he was blacklisted by the House Un-American Activities Committee. he returned to the US later, and made a few interesting films, like Secret Ceremony with Elizabeth Taylor and Robert mitchum, and The Accident. This is, I think, his only science fiction movie.

And it's a bitter, angry, sad and highly frustrated-seeming Cold War story. It manages to throw together a bunch of disparate elements in a really interesting and original way. It has a juvenile delinquent gang led by Oliver Reed in an early role, an American tourist, a group of scientists and military types doing covert experiments on children and an intense Scandinavian artist lady who creates weird sculptures, all congregating in an English seaside town. When the tourist gets mixed up with the gangleader's sister, he vows to protect her from her brother and his thugs. Big mistake. you really don't want to get on Oliver Reed's bad side. Fists fly and tempers flair, and soon our hero and the somewhat drippy sister are on the run, and end up finding out about the scientists and their highly dubious experiments, experiments which the lead professor type believes to be absolutely necessary. You see, he's convinced that a nuclear holocaust is coming, and his work is the only way the human race will survive.

I don't want to spoil this movie by saying much more about it. let's just say and, ok, it's not even a 70s movie so there's not a lot of blood and violence or anything, but to me, this is really intense, mostly in a psychological way. The ending is really sad and, if you have young loved ones (children, relatives, whatever), will make you want to hold them close for a while. Of course, this is one of those movies, like the Space: 1999 series, that ascribes some pretty strange properties to radiation, but it's a bit more realistic than that, and the science aspect isn't really that important anyway. It's more of a drama with a science fiction underpinning.

As well as Oliver, there are some other standouts in the cast. Alexander Knox as the professor is the closest thing the movie has to a villain, but he's not evil at all -- his motivation is that he wants the human race to survive, and he has a really nice relationship with Freya the artist, who is portrayed with real class and poise by Viveca Lindfors. She's a melancholy character, but also kind of the heart of this film, in a way, showing in a real physical sense what beauty humans can accomplish and why the race maybe should survive after all. In the end, oliver Reed's King character tries his best to be a hero. Yes, he's quite an interesting guy, at first a dangerous psychopath, but when the chips are down, he turns out to be not a bad sort. his last scene is just terribly grim and then it leads up to that heart-breaking ending.

So yeah, definitely not a feel-good film. it's personal and not everyone will agree, but to me, this is just as effective a Cold War story as Dr. Strangelove in its own way, and it was even made the same year. I kind of love that this movie is so unknown. People will watch it, expecting maybe some kind of thriller that they can easily forget about the next day, and, maybe, some of them will end up haunted for life by this thing. I know I was; it's a film that is oddly difficult to stop thinking about, even so many years on, when the threat of nuclear annihilation has receded in most peoples' consciousness to a vague but foreboding twinge of menace somewhere on the horizon.

This movie is a bit of a mixed bag. On the one hand its a quite maintaining and also original movie within its genre but on the other its also a quite messy one, that screams wasted potential.

Seriously, in the hands of a more capable director and with some more money behind it, this movie could had been such a fascinating and classic one within its genre. Lots of the right ingredients are there but they are however often wasted by its messy way of storytelling.

This really is the biggest problem of the movie. For about 80% of its running time, I had absolutely no idea what was happening. It's because the 'mystery' of the movie gets revealed and explained really late on into the movie and before that, the movie is filled with lots of moments that in the long run have absolutely nothing to do with the story at all. Same goes for some of the character really. It makes the movie at times really messy and unnecessarily confusing to watch. It takes away lots of the pleasure from watching this movie but even worse is that it kills off lots of the potential that this movie showed with its concept.

The movie is being the type of science-fiction thriller that became mostly popular later in the '70's. It's a story that tries to pick a more realistic approach to things, as if in nothing that gets featured in this movie couldn't potentially happen in real life as well. I honestly like these sort of movies but this movie just really isn't the best example of the genre its possibilities and its great and most fascinating aspects.

It could had all worked out much better within this movie if it had only been more tense and mysterious. The movie now is only mysterious in the sense of not ever really explaining anything, until the end. But this just doesn't really work out well for the movie. The tension and mystery of the movie just often falls flat, which perhaps is also being somewhat due to the fact that the movie doesn't really have strong or likable characters in it. The only really good character in this movie is played by Oliver Reed but he's being somewhat of a villain, so not one of the main 'heroes' or leading characters.

But still, the movie remains a mostly good watch. This is mostly due to its concept, that is being still original, despite the fact that it doesn't get exploited and used to its full potential. Nevertheless, the movie remains a good 'different' watch and I think that the lovers of science-fiction thrillers shall still most likely enjoy this movie, just like I, despite everything, still did.

Just don't expect, just because the Hammer studios name is attached to this, that this movie is going to be a tense, atmospheric one. The atmosphere and setting have basically nothing in common with the typical and distinctive Hammer studios atmosphere or style of film-making. In a way this movie is being much more like Hammer's earlier production, such as all of the 'Quatermass' movies.

Just give it a shot. Chances are you might end up liking it, despite all of its flaws and all of its obvious wasted potential. It's still an interesting and honestly also, good watch.

7/10

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Older Yank Simon Wells (Macdonald Carey) is vacationing on the south coast of England. He is lured by the lovely 20 year old Joan (Shirley Anne Field) into a mugging by her brother King (Oliver Reed) and his gang of black leather clad bikers. Wells is badly beaten. Meanwhile there is a top secret mysterious military plan going on. There is a group of nine children hidden away living in isolation. Wells takes to his boat. Joan jumps on board after getting tired of her domineering brother. They return to shore to find an empty cliff top house. They are chased by King and his gang to a military base. They escape with the kids' help to their underground hideout. Then the kids rescue King as well.

It takes way too long to get to the heart of the movie. The first part almost feels like a fake out on the audience. I don't really understand the need to take that long to set up the characters. It is excruciating to sit through. It picks up a little when the kids get on the screen. At least the mystery of the kids is interesting. It helps to keep the last half of the movie watchable. However that's all that could said about this movie.

Simon and Joan (Macdonald Carey and Shirley Anne Field), a couple running from the woman's violent brother King (Oliver Reed) stumble across a group of strange, ice-cold children living in an underground bunker, who have no knowledge of the outside world and who are monitored by a ruthless government agency. The characters are interesting and the story is entertaining despite the 'science' underlying the plot being implausible, bordering on nonsense. The film has an adult, almost disturbing edge, opening with a scene of Joan 'picking up' Simon, who is twice her age, only to set him up for a brutal mugging by her brother (whose incestuous obsession is barely disguised) and his gang of rockers. Although the story does not elaborate on the provenance of the children beyond an 'accident', their subsequent treatment and the cold-bloodedness of the people overseeing them is clearly a critique of conscienceless science in the 'national interest'. Although they date the film, the scenes around the beach town of Weymouth and the 'Black Leather Rock' leitmotif associated with King's thugs are nice touches in a very well made, if somewhat fanciful, cautionary tale. Based on a 1960 novel called 'The Children of Light', the title was likely changed to cash in on the success of 'Village of the Damned' (1960) (this supposition is supported by lurid posters referring to the children as 'unseen evil' and implying that they have glowing white-eyes like the murderous Midwich moppets, neither of which is true). The British film is directed by black-listed American auteur Joseph Losey and although shot in the early 1960s, the film's release was delayed until 1963 in England (as 'The Damned') and until 1965 (as 'These are the Damned') in the US, likely for political reasons. All in all, one of the better British science fiction films to come out of the 1960s.

considering this movie was made in 1961 (uk), its message is still chilling, how far will mankind experiment? it took me two years just to find a copy, the movie will challenge your imagination, if you laugh and say it could never happen, you may be in denial, the early 15 minutes of the film is 60"s exploitation, after that it evolves into a more serious study of how far government and scientists will push the envelope, if 1% of this sci-fi drama could be true, may god help us.

Hammer sci-fi drama is something of a Village of the Damned knock-off that takes awhile to get going. First half is devoted to drama of American Macdonald Carey romancing British Shirley Anne Field, who is the sister of a biker gang leader (Oliver Reed). This is all fairly tedious with only a hint or two of the sci-fi elements coming later in the film. So make sure you sit with it through all this. Also be prepared for a very annoying song to get stuck in your head. "Black leather black leather smash smash smash" repeats over and over. Anyway, Carey and Field go to a clifftop house to get away from her psycho brother. But Reed and gang show up and chase them. The two eventually find themselves among a group of weird children who are part of some kind of government experiment. It's here where the movie gets interesting.

Macdonald Carey always seemed like a weak leading man to me and I'm not surprised his movie career never took off. He would find his biggest success on TV soap opera Days of Our Lives for decades. Oliver Reed is fine, though his biker gang seems a somewhat laughable threat today. Shirley Anne Field is alright for a rather flimsy part. Veteran actor Alexander Knox brings some class to the film. Viveca Lindfors offers a strange performance where she seems oddly flirtatious with every male she shares a scene with, though nothing ever really comes of this. I don't even think it was part of the script. It just seemed to be something Lindfors threw in there. A decent drama with sci-fi themes and a powerful ending. Worth a look but requires effort.

Somebody had already pipped me to my review title but I'll be Damned if I have to think of a new one! Oliver Reed, one of England's finest, plays King, the psychotic leader of a gang of thugs in Weymouth. When his 20 year old sister falls for the charms of a middle aged American he is not happy and sets about splitting them up, at any cost, but this leads the three to become mixed up in a top secret British programme about raising radioactive kids for the inevitable nuclear holocaust! Yes, it may sound a bit daft but Hammer have done a great job here. It's a far cry from the gothic horror that the studio are most famous for but this is more scary on the grounds that this is far more believable and was made at a time when the real threat of WW3 was high. I think filming it in b&w instead of colour adds to the believability as many similar sci fi thrillers - and of course newsreels - were also b&w at the time. Acting is generally good and fantastic use is made of the coastal locations. It's a pretty bleak film but full credit to Hammer for this one.

Hammer films were behind this unusual and creepy science fiction effort about kids being genetically engineered to survive a nuclear war, meaning they are radioactive enough to kill anyone who comes in close contact with them. Based on H.L. Lawrence's novel The Children of Light, it features a memorable turn from Oliver Reed as the leader of a motorcycle gang. He wears a suit and uses his sister Joan as bait to mug tourists. Macdonald Carey is the American hero who falls in love with Joan. One of the characters is a sculptor, and all the sculptures featured were by British artist Elisabeth Frink. Filmed in 1961 but not released until 1963 it was considered very controversial for the time. It was released under the title of These Are the Damned in the USA, and had been cut to 77 minutes.

On the southern coast of England, a gang of hooligans led by a man named King (Oliver Reed) harass an American yachtsman (Macdonald Carey) and a sculptor living on the shoreline (Viveca Lindfors). Shirley Anne Field plays the gang leader's sister who attracts the yachtsman. All of them are about to learn the secret of the mysterious government installation on the rocky coastline, headed by the character played by Alexander Knox.

"The Damned," aka "These are the Damned" (1962), is a B&W Hammer flick that mixes drama, mystery and sci-fi with a bit o' horror. Yet don't expect a creature feature; this is way more realistic.

It was no doubt influenced a little by "Village of the Damned" (1960), but accusations that it's an inferior rendition of "Children of the Damned" are unwarranted since it debuted two years earlier, not to mention the story is very different from either. I would say it's a mixture of those movies along with the later "The Shuttered Room" (1967) and "Messiah of Evil" (1973). Reed's ruffians are reminiscent of the former and the creepy coastal mysteriousness is akin to both. Another one is "The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea" (1976).

Carey brings to mind Robert Mitchum in his older age while Shirley Anne is easy on the eyes. Meanwhile the quirky song in the opening act, "Black Leather Rock," is evocative of the swinging early 60s. From there on the movie gets increasingly melancholy.

Speaking of which, why is it called "The damned"? Because everyone in the story is damned in one way or another: The artist creates sculptures resembling carbonized cadavers after mass nuclear warfare. The alienation of King's gang is echoed by the physical isolation of the innocent children. The matter-of-fact bureaucrats leading the secret program are so sure of imminent atomic ruin that they're essentially craving it; they've misplaced their humanity to the point that they are more the walking dead than the kids. It's a sad society locked into destruction with practically everything a cancelation of life.

The film runs 1 hour, 27 minutes, and was shot at Bray Studios, just west of London (interiors) with exteriors done in Weymouth, Portland Bill and Chesil Beach, all on the southern coast of England in Dorset.

GRADE: B+

Of all the Hammer films I've seen so far, and they are quite numerous, "These Are The Damned" definitely ranks as their strangest and most curious effort. This legendary British production studio specialized in straightforward monster movies and gorier updates of classic horror tales, but this particular film is something entirely different and actually quite hard to categorize. There are two principal – and extremely opposite – story lines in this film and, even though they seem impossible to blend, director Joseph Losey pulls it off without much effort. The first half (approximately) of the story is more or less reminiscent to such films as "West Side Story" and "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers", and … NO, I'm not kidding. Set on a small and isolated British island community, we're introduced to King (the phenomenal Oliver Reed), his oppressed sister Joan and their docile gang of youthful thugs. The gang targets tourists, like the unfortunate American boat owner Simon Wells. Joan seduces and lures Simon to a quiet alley, where King and C° are waiting to rob and attack him whilst whistling a really awesome tune ("Black Leather, Black Leather … Smash! Smash! Smash!). But Joan is fed up with her life-style and dominant brother and returns to Simon the next day, hoping to escape together. As you're subsequently expecting the rest of the story to revolve on an exciting chase & battle between the two parties, the tone and atmosphere of the film suddenly changes completely and turns into an awkward Sci-Fi ploy! Fleeing from King, Joan and Simon end up in a cave where a bunch of children are apparently kept prisoners by the military and the government. There's something odd about these kids as they all share birthdays, feel extremely cold and respond mysteriously to Geiger counters… The sudden change in atmosphere is unusual, but very original and fascinating! The second half of the story is clearly influenced by the success of "Village of the Damned", which happens to be one of my favorite Sci-Fi tales and easily of the greatest classics in the genre. A fairly high level of suspense is sustained throughout both story lines and there are several genuinely creepy moments to enjoy. The acting performances aren't superb, but Losey's direction is surefooted enough to compensate. The stylish black & white photography adds tension to the already grim atmosphere and – as said – the theme song is truly terrific. I read about "These are the Damned" before, but it's an obscure and hard-to-find film. So, thank you very much good people of the BBC, for programming this beauty!

But the whole gang thing, weird sister-brother relationship, plus the two May-December romances are offputting. But the Viveca Lindfors character, her art in the face of Cold War despair, and the children themselves were quite wonderful.

So what if you could breed a bunch of mutant kids who would survive the inevitable nuclear World War III that's coming? Catch is, no one can get near them while you remotely teach them (zoom classes before there was zoom!) And they aren't happy about being isolated.

Inevitably someone finds out about them and wants to rescue them. Unfortunately the people who do that are not at all heroic. They're terrible people, a rapey middle aged guy and the girl gang member who picks up random men on the street to be robbed. Lovely pair. 8/

The film is unbalanced with too much about the gang nonsense, and Oliver Reed's hammy acting is terrible from the get-go but grows to be even worse as the film progresses. More about artist Viveca and her ancient military BF, and the kids he controls would have made it a better film. A random couple on a boat finding the kids would have been better than people I'd already grown to hate.

But then the film would have had a running time of 43 minutes, so someone would have had to write several more scenes.

This is a totally undisciplined film that attempts too much. It starts out with British Teddy Boy motorcycle thugs from the '60s (led by OLIVER REED) mocking rich American tourist (MACDONALD CAREY) and beating him up while some sort of rock song about leather plays on the soundtrack.

It goes on to explore the relationship between a weird sculptress (VIVECA LINDFORS) with a penchant for ugly art and a jaded scientist (ALEXANDER KNOX) who both loves her and hates her for what she is. And lets add right here that Miss Lindfors has never given a worse performance in a role which defies any normalcy. No wonder! She had nothing to grasp onto in portraying this woman, no clue at all as to the woman's unexplained motives except that she was a free thinker.

Then the plot shows us that the scientist is head of a nuclear project that experiments with small children in a most unusual way, rearing them in a cave-like dwelling where their only contact with human beings is through a large TV screen. The plot gets thicker when MACDONALD CAREY and Oliver Reed's sister (SHIRLEY ANNE FIELD) develop a romance despite her brother's incestuous objections and accidentally stumble upon the building where the weird experiments are going on.

It's all structured so poorly that you keep wondering in what direction the plot will wander next and none of the scientific explanations seem the least bit plausible.

Summing up: Extremely dated sci-fi directed by Joseph Losey is fairly well acted but the script is a jumbled mess.

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. 9/10

One 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.

Its fair to say that this film probably wasn't funded by the Weymouth Tourist Board; it looks scenic enough but the town in this film is infested with psychopathic leather-clad hoodlums and the nearby cliffs are home to a bevy of radioactive sprogs kept in a secret military establishment.

The bleak overall picture painted is one of society on the one hand corrupted by the youth within it (something of a presage to 'a Clockwork Orange'), and on the other hand the values of the establishment are just as warped, set as they are on carrying out strange experiments on small children, in order to forestall the effects of an anticipated nuclear holocaust.

In the midst of all this more human values of love and caring are seen to have a role after all.

Its been suggested that this might make a good middle section to a triple bill also comprising 'Village of the Damned' and 'Children of the Damned'; its not a bad idea since these films explore the other-worldly nature of small children who are not normal.

Shirley Anne Field is lovely but her acting -and her accent- are a bit hit and miss here. Her romance with Carey seems a bit weird; Carey was well over twice her age when this film was made.

Overall this film is a pretty good example of early 1960s film-making; it explores the themes of youth culture and the threat of nuclear Armageddon in an intriguing way. Oh, by the way, I've been to Weymouth and it isn't like that after all. Six out of ten from me.