As expected, something happens to upset this balance, but in typical Shyamalan style, we're not really sure what that something is until much later. Things start going awry slowly at first but eventually escalate. The fun is in anticipating when and what will happen and the movie takes it's time doing so (in a good way).
Shyamalan makes excellent use of music to set the mood, and the cinematography of subdued colors seems to bring everything down a notch, so that when something does happen, it's that much more effective.
William Hurt was excellent as usual as the leader of the town. Sigourney Weaver had a role as both a council member and the mother of Lucius (Joaquin Phoenix). To be honest, I found her presence to be distracting and it took me out of the film. In my mind I suppose I associate her too strongly with Ripley from the Alien series. Personally, I really don't see what the big deal is about Joaquin Phoenix... he plays morose really well, but that's it. He's a one note performer IMO.
BTW, the other thing that kind of took me out of the movie was when halfway through, I felt like I had been sucked back into The Blair Witch Project.
Interestingly, two of the better performances both came from characters that were handicapped: Adrien Brody as the mentally handicapped member of the village, and in particular Bryce Dallas Howard as Ivy. The movie would fail or succeed depending upon her performance, and she carried it off beautifully. She really owned the screen with a quiet but powerful presence whenever she appeared.
Overall The Village is suspenseful, creepy, and provides a number of good scares.
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