I have always been a fan of John Carpenters brand of cheap but original horror films but this one was the exception to the rule. It should have been good, I like Carpenter and I like John Wyndhams books. "The Midwich Cuckoos" was arguably one of the Sci-Fi writers best novels. It was certainly more thought provoking than his better remembered "Day of the Triffids". The book was filmed as "Village of the Damned" in the early 1960s and within the limitations of its low budget it was pretty faithful to the original novel. This version however seems to have thrown both the novel and the 1960s movie out of the window and opted for a virtual re-write which adds nothing to the story and instead loses most of the subtlety of the book. The narrative flow of the book and earlier film are replaced by a disjointed mess of unrelated scenes. The acting was wooden, the script inconsequential and the direction? Did Mr Carpenter even read the book? What was the point in "saving" David, unless it was for a, thankfully, unmade follow up? Virtually every other Carpenter film has simple yet memorable music that matches the mood of the movie perfectly but not this one. I've just watched the film and yet I couldn't hum a note of the theme, if it had one. Oh, I could hum music from "The Fog", "Halloween" or "Escape From New York" etc, etc but they were memorable movies with memorable music this, by contrast, was better forgotten.