M. Night Shyamalan's thriller is stylish and bold but ultimately, it falls well short of being a cinematic success. However in its failure, it does succeed in making one very interesting point: a bad film can also have an amazing score. James Newton Howard has been a stalwart of Hollywood concerto since his first work in the mid-eighties and has composed the scores to a number of big movie franchises including Nolan's Dark Knight Trilogy, Blood Diamond and The Hunger Games. The Village however, demonstrates Howard at his nuanced best; deftly blurring the lines between romantic simplicity and vociferous horror. Most effective is the composer's protest to the predictable, utilising Hilary Hahn's bucolic, enchanting violin solos at the peak of the narrative's tensest scenes. 'Those We Don't Speak Of' is a masterpiece in terms of timing and composition and is tantamount to the fact that a horror score does not have to be the grating orchestral piece that has populated cinema since Hitchcock's infamous shower scene. Howard deservedly garnered an Oscar-nomination for his work on The Village but regrettably, the score has subsequently been overlooked due to the negative reviews the film received.
