How others will see it. This chilling and cerebral mystery/horror film has cross-generational appeal. The premise of using seemingly innocent children as unfeeling communal mass murderers is still powerful today. Undoubtedly, the film inspired similar horror movies, such as the Children of the Corn series. Of course, no idea is completely original, and The Bad Seed (1956) preceded Village of the Damned. The inevitable modern color remake was by John Carpenter in 1995.
How I felt about it. Perhaps no other movie of similar quality had as obscure a director as Wolf Rilla. How obscure is Rilla? No other film of his has received as many as 100 votes at imdb.com. The success of Village of the Damned, then, may be due to Stirling Silliphant, the first of three writers credited (the other two writers were director Rilla and the film's producer, Ronald Kinnoch). Apparently, Silliphant's excellent and thorough screenplay (based on a John Wyndham novel) made the task of directing the film straightforward.
But it isn't perfect. Although George Sanders' acting is unassailable, he is a quarter century older than his hottie brunette wife, Barbara Shelley. The real problem, though, is that the alien children are too vengeful and impatient. Since their survival is precarious as it is, they should seek to blend into society, and avoid freaking out humans with their glowing eyes and acts of malicious homicide. When their numbers are sufficient, a few generations down the road, then they can wipe out the humans, perhaps leaving a few around for display at zoos.
How evil are the alien children? They show no remorse when it comes to killing those humans that cross them. But those humans who show no malice toward them are treated with respect. The alien kids especially like George Sanders, the putative father of ringleader David (Martin Stephens). Sanders is a scientist, and believes that the superintelligent alien children can be trained to provide medical and technological advances that will benefit mankind.
However, the children ignore any ethical guidance that Sanders delivers, and it is obvious that they have plans of their own and regard humans as obstacles in their path. In science fiction horror movies, it is often the scientist (e.g. The Thing (1951), Alien (1979)) who wishes to spare the alien in the hope it can assist (instead of destroying) humanity. But even Sanders eventually realizes that it's either them or us.