The Village (2004)
Where to Watch
- Before Bryce Dallas Howard was cast, several major A-list stars turned down the lead role because they felt the script was too risky.
- The original script for The Village was written over a decade before production finally began in 2004.
- Eagle-eyed viewers have noticed a hidden easter egg referencing M. Night Shyamalan's previous film in the background of the opening scene.
The Village is a 2004 American psychological thriller written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan. Set in what appears to be an isolated 19th-century rural community in Pennsylvania, the film follows the residents of Covington, who live in fear of mysterious creatures called "Those We Don't Speak Of" that inhabit the surrounding woods and enforce a boundary that no villager may cross.
When a young man is critically injured and needs medicine unavailable in the village, the blind Ivy Walker, played by Bryce Dallas Howard, volunteers to venture through the woods to the "towns" beyond. The Village's twist โ revealing the true nature and time period of the community โ was Shyamalan's most polarizing, with audiences divided between those who found it a powerful metaphor for fear-based isolationism and those who felt cheated by the genre misdirection. Bryce Dallas Howard's Ivy, navigating the terrifying woods without sight, anchored the film's most suspenseful sequences.
The Village earned $256 million worldwide on a $60 million budget.
