The Village

By RUSSELL BAILLIE

(Herald rating: * * * * )

In the space of three movies - one great, two infuriating, all successful - director M. Night Shyamalan has become his own brand.

He's the guy who does horror without anything too horrible happening. He's the writer-director whose storytelling suggests Steven Spielberg divided by Stephen King.

After the blindside endings of The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable and Signs, his audience expects him to deliver "the twist" as much as Chubby Checker's fans did of him. There is quite a twist towards the conclusion of The Village. It's not hard to work out ... well, er, especially after you've seen it and all those clues become clear, retrospectively, speaking.

But not being able to discuss the twist makes it difficult express a view about the movie as a whole. By Shyamalan's own chart, it's better than its immediate predecessors but not quite a match for his classic debut.

The twist may leave some feeling cheated, especially if they were hoping for something along the I-see-dead-people line or weren't susceptible to the meticulously paced look-out-behind-you frights it delivers along the way.

But if you are - and I was - The Village becomes one of those movies that stays with you, even if too much of it is ponderous and can often seem like The Blair Witch Project meets Little Women.

We find the inhabitants of The Village living the simple, 19th-century Pennsylvania life, their rural community happy to be cut off from the "wicked" towns.

In the surrounding woods, say the ruling elders, are creatures that won't venture into the settlement so long as the villagers don't venture into the forest.

The elusive beasties come with the title "those we do not speak of" and there's a set of colour-coded rules to maintain the detente with these supposedly nasty neighbours.

What upsets the balance is a love triangle between Ivy (Howard), the blind but spirited daughter of elder Edward Walker (Hurt), Lucius (Phoenix), the earnest son of elder Alice Hunt (Weaver) and Noah (Brody), the drooling village idiot, who's long had a special friendship with Ivy. Their period dialogue can be unintentionally amusing.

But the cast seem game to play along with Shyamalan's efforts at yesteryear, and Howard - daughter of director Ron - shines as the emotional centre of it all.

Lucius and Ivy's courtship barely begun, it seems the creatures are growing restless with the arranged borders, keeping the community on edge until a tragic event means someone must venture into the outside world to seek help.

There is an allegory in there somewhere about isolationism and innocence and trying to keep the world at bay. But its loftier intentions take a backseat to the very large case of cinematic heebee-geebees it delivers, especially as it takes those furtive steps into the forest.

Nothing too horrible happens. But the feeling that it could at any moment makes The Village a satisfying excursion into the twilight zone.

CAST: Bryce Dallas Howard, Joaquin Phoenix, William Hurt, Sigourney Weaver, Adrien Brody

DIRECTOR: M. Night Shyamalan

RATING: M (medium level violence)

RUNNING TIME: 108 mins

SCREENING: Village, Hoyts, Berkeley cinemas