These Are The Damned (1963)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

These Are The Damned (1963) – J. Losey

Odd blend of social drama (in which an American ex-pat pursues a young British girl but gets harassed by her brother and his band of “teddy boys”) and science fiction (in which they stumble into an underground cave where a scientist has been raising children from birth contacting them only through a video screen). It doesn’t entirely coalesce but around halfway through things started to become interesting – of course, the earlier uncomfortable social dynamics are probably more consistent with director Joseph Losey’s other output (especially when he started working with Pinter).  However, I was there primarily for the sci-fi in Hammerscope this time and it doesn’t really disappoint – perhaps it feels even weirder (these cold-as-ice children and their predicament) because it’s crammed uneasily into another picture.  But such is/was the world where the nuclear threat was inserted surreally into everyone’s daily existence (see also Peter Watkins’ The War Game, filmed around the same time in Britain).  Worth a look.