How can you be sure your child is really your child? Could that innocent-seeming baby be a changeling – a cuckoo in your nest? There is something about the evil elf child, reborn as the alien walking among us, that continues to fascinate and terrify us. So much so, the broadcaster Sky has announced it has commissioned a third version of Village of the Damned from David Farr, the writer of The Night Manager.
The first, filmed in 1960, is a cult classic of understated British horror. The 1995 version, starring Christopher Reeves, translated the nightmare to small-town America.
Both were based on John Wyndham’s The Midwich Cuckoos, in which a whole village briefly loses consciousness. Nine months later, eerily identical alien babies with telepathic powers are born to the women. They are smarter and grow faster than normal – and are soon threatening not just their “parents”, but all humankind.
Originally published in 1957, the story is based on myths of changeling babies swapped by fairies. The idea of otherworldly children masquerading as human has resonated down the centuries, and still speaks to our anxieties today.
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