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The movie starts out at a funeral of
a child in a small village. The death date on the tombstone establishes
the date as 1897. As the story progresses, it is revealed the villagers
live in fear of nameless creatures in the woods that surround the
village. They have built a barrier of oil lanterns and watch towers
that are constantly manned to keep watch for "Those We Don't Speak Of".
It is explained that the villagers have a long-standing truce with the
monsters; the villagers do not go into their woods, and the creatures
do not enter their village. Even so, dead, skinned bodies of small
animals are starting to appear around the village.
After the funeral, Lucius Hunt
(Joaquin Phoenix) asks the village elders for permission to pass
through the woods to get medical supplies from "the towns". His request
is denied and, later, he is admonished by his mother, Alice (Sigourney
Weaver), for wanting to go to the towns, which the villagers describe
as "wicked places where wicked people live". It is revealed in that
scene that the Elders seem to keep dark secrets of their own in the
form of black boxes, the contents of which they keep hidden from their
own offspring. After Lucius makes a short venture into the woods, the
creatures leave warnings around the village in the form of splashes of
red paint (referred by the villagers only as "the bad color") on all
the villagers' doors.
Meanwhile, Ivy Elizabeth Walker
(Bryce Dallas Howard), the blind daughter of the chief Elder, Edward
Walker (William Hurt), informs Lucius that she has strong feelings for
him, and he returns her affections. They arrange to be married, but
things go horribly wrong when Noah Percy (Adrien Brody), a young man
with apparent developmental problems who is enamored of Ivy, stabs
Lucius with a knife.
Edward goes against the wishes of the
other Elders, agreeing to allow Ivy to pass through the forest and seek
out medicine for Lucius. Before she leaves, the first plot twist is
revealed when Edward explains the secret of the creatures
– they are fabrications created by the Elders in an
attempt to keep any of their children from leaving the village. He does
mention, however, that he had heard rumors of "real creatures" living
in the woods at one time.
While Ivy is traveling through the
forest, one of the beasts suddenly attacks her. She tricks it into
falling into a deep hole to its death. It is then that the second plot
twist is revealed — the creature is actually Noah in a
costume that he had found under the floor of the room he had been
locked in. It is implied in that scene that it was Noah who had been
skinning the animals all along.
Ivy eventually finds her way to the
edge of the woods, where she encounters a large wall. After she climbs
over the wall the final plot twist is revealed: the film is set in the
present day (a newspaper in one scene shows July 30,
2004, the date of the film's release). A park ranger
driving a Land Rover with the words "Walker Wildlife Preserve" on the
side spots Ivy and is shocked to hear that she has come out of the
woods. He then learns that Ivy's last name is "Walker".
It is revealed that the village was
actually founded some time in the late 1970s, when Edward Walker,
professor of American History
at the University of Pennsylvania, approached other people he met at a
grief counseling clinic after his father had been murdered. He asked
them if they wished to join him in "an idea" he had. From this
apparently grew "the village", a secluded town in the middle of a wildlife preserve purchased
with Edward's family fortune, a place where they would be protected
from any aspect of the outside world (the head ranger named "Jay" in
the ranger station, played by Shyamalan seen reflected in a glass door,
fills in several plot points; the Walker estate pays to maintain the
ranger corps, the rangers make sure no one goes into the wildlife
preserve to "disturb the animal(s)", the Walker estate "paid off" the
government to keep the entire wildlife preserve a "no-fly zone"). Once
the village was created, it appears the original "Elders" rolled the
clock back to the late 19th century to what they thought was a simpler,
more peaceful time.
The ranger retrieves medicine from a
ranger station and Ivy returns to the village. This sequence is
intercut with brief segments showing the Elders opening their black
boxes, which are revealed to contain mementos from their lives in the
actual outside world, including one or more items related to their past
traumas. The film ends with a scene in a cabin where all the Elders are
sitting around Lucius' bed. In that scene Edward points out that Noah's
death will allow them to continue deceiving the rest of the villagers
that there are "creatures" in the woods and all the Elders take a vote
to continue living in the village. The film ends with Ivy arriving and
saying, "I'm back, Lucius".
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