As stated in an earlier review of this movie M Night Shyamalan is one of the few directors, if not the only director, in Hollywood whose movies are a draw simply because of him. Most of his movies, except for The Sixth Sense downplayed the leading actors, and instead focused on the director. Not since Alfred Hitchcock has there been a director with that sort of following.

In his latest film, The Village, Shyamalan delivers a movie that continues in his tradition of creepiness.

In the opening scene we see a father, distraught over the casket of a loved one, his young son who died of an apparent illness. In the background from reading the date on the headstone we learn that the year is 1897.

The village they live in is surrounded by woods in which "Those who we do not speak of" live. The monsters are attracted by the color red, and scared away with yellow. When a red flower is seen, people quickly pluck it and bury it, to hide it away from the monsters. The people of the village live in fear of these hardly seen, though often heard monsters. They never enter the forest, for that is the land of the beasts. The beings in the forest therefore do not enter the village. That is the conditions of the truce between the villagers and the monsters.

The village is a sort of utopian society. There is no money, and everyone works together to grow food, build houses, and keep the village going. We are told through the movie that they came here to get away from the harshness of the towns. Most every house has a locked box, where reminders of their past are locked away, to remind those who originally came to the village why they moved here.

Lucius Hunt, played by Joaquin Phoenix offers to go into the towns to get medicine so that the people like the young boy whose funeral we saw at the beginning of the film, won't have to die due to lack of health care. He asks the elders for permission to enter the woods, and they refuse.

Ivy Walker, played by Bryce Dallas Howard, the blind daughter of lead elder Edward Walker, played William Hurt, is the love interest of Lucius. Though blind, her connection to Lucius is so strong that she sees a color emanate from him. Her father is the only other one she can "see".

The monsters in the woods soon appear to be less willing to value the truce, as one morning most of the village livestock are found skinned alive, and red slashes are found on the doors to the houses.

When a tragedy happens, Edward grants permission for Ivy to enter the woods to go to the towns to get medicine, which sets up a confrontation and conclusion where everything is explained, and nothing is as it seems.