Crew
Director/Screenplay/Producer – Swamy Kandan, Screenplay – Swamy Kandan & Jason Whittier, Photography – Piero Basso, Music – Dr. Robert Folk, Visual Effects – SD Digital Creations, Inc, Production Design – Dianna Carmel Faulkner. Production Company – Midnight Friends, LLC.
Cast
Ali Faulkner (Rachel), Jonathan Bennett (Greg), Richard Riehle (Paul), Stelio Savante (Joe), Tobu Gadison (Jim), Kef Lee (Jason)
Plot
The screenwriter Greg gets away to a small town near Salem, Massachusetts following a break-up with his girlfriend. He rents a room at a house. There he meets the other tenant Rachel, a journalist who is researching an article about a secret village nearby that dates back to the time of the Salem witch trials. Rachel delves into investigating the ergot poisoning that may have affected the villagers, creating fear and paranoia. She is warned by a local Paul that the villagers will not talk to her. Soon after, she finds sinister and hooded figures following her.
The Secret Village was the second film from Swamy Kandan who had previously made the domestic drama Catch Your Mind (2008) but has done nothing since. Nobody involved ever seemed to be much heard from again with the exception of Richard Riehle, a seasoned actor.
It is evident just from the standard video photography, if not from the mostly unknown cast, that The Secret Village is a low-budget, video-shot film circa 2010. Swamy Kanden lacks much skill as a director. The film is filled with cliché figures in black hooded robes following Ali Faulkner and all manner of warnings about dangers being given. Not to mention it is set around Salem, the locus of the notorious 17th Century witch trials.
Despite a reasonable seeming set-up, Swamy Kanden does nothing with it. Despite all the lurking figures, there is no creation of ominous atmosphere. And for all the build-up, we oddly never actually visit any ‘secret village’ of the title – the entire film takes place in a rural location and we visit several properties but never actually see any village.
The biggest disappointment of the film is the ending. Swamy Kanden pulls a big M. Night Shyamalan-influenced Conceptual Reversal Twist on us. Here [PLOT SPOILERS] we discover that all the villagers and their conspiracy is an hallucination in Ali Faulkner’s mind created by a case of ergot poisoning (from fungus that would have infected the rye in the bread, which is one theory put forward as to the cause of the paranoia and persecutions that went on in Salem – although this is unlikely to be a problem today, unless Ali Faulkner were eating home milled bread as most ergot spores are detected and removed by commercial bread processing). It proves a massive letdown. Indeed, the point that the climax of the film reaches means that The Secret Village is technically not even a horror film at all.
Trailer here