Horror romp is totally cuckoo

THE Midwich Cuckoos packed in more surprises than Mary Poppins’ carpet bag.

For starters, in one scene there was quite clearly a train running.

Pregnant Zoe tried to board it, but something held her back. And not an RMT picket line or the price of the ticket either. Her unborn baby wouldn’t let the mum-to-be leave the town.

Like every other woman of childbearing age, Zoe had been knocked-up by aliens during a blackout.

Talk about close encounters. In this terrifying tale, ET surely stands for extra-testosterone.

The creepy kids grow quickly, share a hive mind and control their host-mums.

They have glow-in-the-dark golden eyes and telekinetic abilities that would blow Derren Brown’s brain.

They kill a dog and stop Amrita from driving her child away, setting off a cacophony of car alarms. Zoe’s spiteful sprog made her hold her hand over boiling water. Throw in soap and the Dingles would be terrified.

Sky’s take on John Wyndham’s 1957 sci-fi novel is fun despite being painfully slow. But the adaptation is predictably updated.

Hero Gordon Zellaby, an elderly author, has become family therapist Susannah Zellaby.

And the brats are fashionably diverse, weakening their impact.

In the book and the films, they’re all blond and blue-eyed. The sinister Village Of The Damned movie poster creeped me out as a kid. Think the Hitler Youth with superpowers… or the Johnson clan on holiday.

The concept was shocking then, but now we’re used to kids who go in for dangerous groupthink, boss their parents and embrace potty ideologies.

Today’s snowflake youths are scarier than Wyndham’s cuckoos ever were.

JODIE briefly made it to Croydon but said: “It didn’t feel right.” It never does, luv.

ALIENS in the Home Counties! Strewth. Most folk aren’t keen on people from the next village.