Film / These Are the Damned

aka: The Damned 1963

"I live with one fact. A power has been released that will melt those stones. We must be ready when the time comes."

These Are the Damned (UK title: The Damned) is a 1963 Hammer Sci-Fi Horror film directed by Joseph Losey, based on H.L. Lawrence's 1960 novel The Children of Light.

While on a boating holiday in Dorset, American tourist Simon Wells (Macdonald Carey) tries to pick up local girl Joan (Shirley Anne Field), only to get robbed and beaten up by her brother King (Oliver Reed) and his gang of Teddy boys. He gets comforted by Swedish sculptor Freya Neilson (Viveca Lindfors) and her lover Bernard (Alexander Knox), a scientist who is involved in a top secret project involving nine children kept in isolation in an underground facility on a well-guarded military base. Later Joan comes to Simon for help in escaping her overly-controlling brother. While fleeing from King, Simon and Joan enter the base and then inadvertently stumble into the facility, endangering all their lives.

---

The movie has the following tropes:

• The Ark: Lampshaded when the children wonder if they are on a Colony Ship to another planet. Turns out they're an ark of a different kind.
• Badass Biker: Though only for a single scene where Joan outraces the rest of the gang so she can get to Simon's boat. After she dismounts, she removes her boots and puts on her heels, which she's hung around her neck on a length of string.
• Because I Said So: Bernard fobs off questions from the children by saying that everything will be explained at the proper time. This works until their carefully structured world is disrupted by the arrival of 'Big People' from the outside.
• Big Brother Is Watching You: The children warn about the 'eyes' which are everywhere, except in their hideout. Turns out that Bernard knows about the hideout, but refuses to put a camera there because it's better for their mental health that the children have a place all to themselves. When Bernard orders the children to hand over the intruders, they rebel by smashing or obscuring all of the cameras.
• Black Helicopter: Military helicopters are shown closely following King's car and Simon's boat, waiting for the occupants to die of radiation poisoning.
• Bleed 'Em and Weep: King breaks down in tears after shooting a guard, implying for all his tough guy act he's never actually killed someone before.
• Caged Bird Metaphor: Lampshaded when Freya gives Bernard a bird sculpture as a gift. At the end of the movie, Bernard regrets that the children now know they are prisoners and it will affect them accordingly.
• Children Are Innocent: Played for horror as the children have no idea they are a Walking Wasteland that will kill any living creature they come into contact with.
• Covers Always Lie: The children don't have the Monochromatic Eyes shown on the poster, and are hardly a "lurking unseen evil!", though their radiation certainly is. Given the title, the poster may have been encouraging confusion with Village of the Damned (1960).
• Creepy Child: Inverted — the fact that the children appear normal, but are gradually shown not to be, is what's creepy.
• Did Not Think This Through: William plots the blind spots on the cameras, but forgets that the man he's trying to smuggle past them is taller than he is.
• Diegetic Switch: The song "Black Leather Rock" is used to introduce King's gang, who then start whistling the song after the music ends.
• Distracted by the Sexy
  Joan: Whoever I am, I'm not who you think... You never even asked my name!
  Simon: With a figure like that, you don't need a name!
• Developing Doomed Characters: The plot about the Teddy boys, and anything that Freya does, is irrelevant to the Government Conspiracy except to make the audience care about the unfortunates who stumble across it.
• Downer Ending: Everyone who finds out about the Government Conspiracy dies, and the movie ends on the sound of the children calling out for someone to rescue them from a prison they can only escape from if nuclear war breaks out.
• Easily Forgiven: Simon doesn't take it personally regarding Joan setting him up for a beating at the hands of her brother, and even helps her escape from him. Of course, the fact that she's an attractive Damsel in Distress is implied to have a lot to do with this.
• Evil Wears Black:
  • Except for their leader, the Teddy boys wear black leather jackets.
  • The children fear the 'Black Death' that comes down the elevator. They turn out to be soldiers wearing black Hazmat Suits.
• Face Death with Dignity: Freya rejects the idea of joining Bernard in helping raise the children. Knowing he must now kill her, she continues making her sculpture rather than waste her last moments talking to him. Meanwhile Simon and Joan turn their boat around to rescue the children, even though they're dying of radiation poisoning and are being closely shadowed by a government helicopter.
• First Time in the Sun: After they escape, the children stare in amazement at the sun they've never seen. Until the soldiers drag them screaming back to their bunker.
• Foreshadowing:
  • The children mention a rabbit that found its way into their hideout, but got sick and its hair fell out.
  • Bernard muses that Edgecliff seems to have a fatal attraction for lovers. He ends up killing Freya there.
• Future Food Is Artificial: Although the film appears to be set in the present day, a boy brings their guests some "lunch" which is implied to be this.
  "It has all the vitamins and minerals. We make it ourselves in a lab."
• Greaser Delinquents: King runs a gang of Teddy Boys.
• Hollywood Mid-Life Crisis: Implied with Simon — a middle-aged, recently divorced insurance executive who's quit his job to go on a boating holiday, and quickly falls for a younger and disreputable woman.
• Honey Trap: Joan acts as The Bait to lure Simon to where her brother's gang is waiting to mug him.
• Hope Spot:
  • After the 'Black Death' guards have been overpowered, Simon says he can now free the children. Then he realizes the Geiger counter he took off Major Holland starts clicking the closer it gets to the children.
  • Henry escapes in King's car, and Bernard lets Simon and Joan leave on their boat even after what they've seen. However, he knows they're dying, and he's sent the helicopters after them to retrieve Henry and make sure there's no survivors.
• Hypocritical Humor: Simon offers to break the window at Freya's house, but Joan tells him he should have more respect for property. She then uses her knife to slip the catch.
• Incest Subtext:
  • Implied with King's behavior towards his sister. Joan calls him out on the fact that he's never had a girl of his own, and he doesn't want her to be with any other man, not even members of his own gang.
  • One of the children asks if it's true that brothers and sisters can't marry. Bernard assures them that none of them are related, but seeing as nine children are not enough for an Adam and Eve Plot...
• Ironic Echo
  • Simon is playing tourist when Joan introduces herself by saying, "Never seen a clock tower before?" When Joan turns up at his yacht looking for sanctuary, Simon sardonically asks if she's never seen a boat before.
  • King says, "Forward into battle, dear chaps" when lining up his gang to mug Simon. He says the same thing on entering the children's bunker.
• In Your Nature to Destroy Yourselves: Bernard thinks that nuclear war is inevitable due to the violent nature of humanity, making his actions a necessary evil.
• I'd Tell You, but Then I'd Have to Kill You: Freya isn't happy that Bernard refuses to talk about his work, but he warns her that knowing his secrets could condemn her to death. He is not exaggerating.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: When King enters the hideout, he and Simon grab clubs and face off... then throw them aside, realising they have other things to worry about.
• Mad Scientist: A more chilling version because Bernard isn't the Evil Is Hammy-type you'd expect from a Hammer horror film, but a bureaucratic Well-Intentioned Extremist. He didn't create the children, but admits he would create more if he knew how to do so.
• Meaningful Name: The children have been named after British royalty.
• Mutants: The nine children being kept in a secret underground bunker by the British government have skin that's cold to the touch, are immune to radiation yet contaminate any living thing that comes into contact with them. They were created in a freak radiation accident, and are being studied in the hope of creating more such children who can continue the human race if nuclear war breaks out.
• No-One Could Have Survived That: The soldiers think Joan and Simon died when they fell off the cliff into the sea, but they (and Kelly, who's crazy enough to follow them down the cliff in the dark) are rescued by the children. However Bernard questions Freya the next day, and realizing King is still out there has his men continue the search.
• Off-the-Shelf FX: The teaching machine one girl uses is a hair hood dryer.
• Our Doors Are Different: King is disturbed by the door to the facility which whirs open when one of the children waves a hand across a sensor, but doesn't open for him. There is no such sensor on the inside. It's a radiation detector designed to open the door automatically in the event of a nuclear war.
• Passing Notes in Class: The children do this to communicate without being seen by the 'eyes'.
• Perfect Health: When Joan asks the children if they catch cold, they have no idea what she's talking about. However Mary is sick and it's mentioned there were actually twelve children at one point, so they are not immortal.
• Perp Sweating: Major Holland tries this on a Teddy Boy (including the requisite lamps shining in face) but he's not impressed. Although they hold him for hours of questioning, Holland lets the boy go on realizing he's hasn't seen anything.
• P.O.V. Cam: One is shown moving through the children's bunker before the Reveal Shot of Major Holland wearing a Hazmat Suit.
• Psychopathic Manchild: King. One moment he's smashing up Freya's sculpture in a rage, then wrestling her towards the cliff edge... then he stops and breaks down crying.
• The Reveal: The nine children are mutants, created in the womb by a freak radiation accident. It made them immune to radiation, but their bodies are radioactive making them fatal to any normal person. Bernard is keeping them in the bunker for when nuclear war breaks out so they can repopulate the world.
• Rule of Symbolism
  • The plot with the Teddy boys as a commentary on the innate violence of humanity.
  • Freya's sculptures (especially in the opening panning shot) appear similar to the human remains found in Pompeii, an ancient city destroyed by an overwhelming cataclysm.
• Sinister Switchblade: Joan is introduced with a switchblade tucked into the front of her pants when she picks up Simon, as part of her bad girl look, but when one is actually produced by a Teddy boy, it's just so Sid can lend Freya his knife.
• Sinister Whistling: King's gang whistle the tune to "Black Leather Rock" when going to mug Simon, and later for signaling while they're hunting Simon and Joan in the graveyard.
• Stand-In Parents: In their hideout the children have images of their 'parents', which are just photos they've removed from books. They live in hope that their real parents will one day come and free them.
• Swiss-Cheese Security: Averted; the Edgecliff Establishment is surrounded by an alarmed fence that activates the moment Joan and Simon touch it, with soldiers and guard dogs responding the moment the protagonists break in. The only reason they didn't find the intruders earlier is not due to Major Holland, but because Bernard refused to allow cameras in the children's hideout.
• Sword Cane: Teddy twirls a cane, and at one point detaches the handle to reveal a knife he uses to threaten Simon.
• Thermal Dissonance: When Victoria takes Joan by the hand, Joan exclaims that her hand is "cold as ice", while Victoria exclaims, "They're warm!" Joan notes that Victoria's hand doesn't get any warmer even when she's holding it.
• Token Good Teammate: When Teddy boy Sid turns up at the Birdcage, he gets Freya's help by asking for it instead of insulting her and smashing her sculptures like King did.
• Try and Follow: While being chased by King's gang, Simon and Joan climb over a Chain-Link Fence patrolled by Angry Guard Dogs. While the guards quickly round up the rest of King's gang, he's able to escape by climbing down the cliffs in the dark.
• Undead Child: When King touches the skin of a child and finds out how cold it is, he starts shouting in panic: "He's dead! He's dead, I tell you!"
• Video Phone: Bernard and the other teachers run the classes by remote video.
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  Bernard: My children are the buried seeds of life. When that time comes, the thing itself will open up the door, and my children will go out to inherit the Earth.
  Freya: What Earth, Bernard? What Earth will you leave them? After all that Man has made, and still has to make! [crying] Is this the extent of your dream? To set nine ice-cold children free, in the ashes of the universe?
• You Know Too Much: Simon realizes they've seen too much in the bunker, and is surprised when Bernard tells them they can leave, but Bernard explains to Freya that they are already dying, and afterwards their boat will be sunk to destroy the evidence. He then points out that Freya too has seen too much, but his vision of the future is so abhorrent she chooses death rather than join his project. Bernard then shoots her, while King dies when his car drives off a bridge while he's trying to evade a roadblock.