Movie conversations can get a little tense when the name M. Night Shyamalan comes up. When thinking of Shyamalan, muddled plots and twist endings that make zero sense may come to mind. It’s quite reasonable, considering that the critically shreddedAfter EarthandAvatar: The Last Airbenderare both part of his filmmaking resume. But before all the bad twist endings and muddled plots, M. Night Shyamalan was seen as the next big filmmaker in Hollywood.
Right out of the gate, Shyamalan’s first two movies wereThe Sixth SenseandUnbreakable, two movies considered as his best. Beyond that, they were some of the best movies of the late 90s to early 2000s. To this day,The Sixth Senseis seen as an all-timegreat horror/thriller, andUnbreakableis still one of the best deconstructions of the superhero genre — which is quite an impressive feat seeing as how much the superhero genre has grown sinceUnbreakable’s release. But it was twenty years ago now that his first blemish would appear on his resume: the 2002 alien thriller,Signs.
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The movie features an impressive cast. Graham Hess (Mel Gibson) is a former reverend who now takes care of his two children, played by Rory Culkin and Abigail Breslin, with the help of his brother, Merrill (Joaquin Phoenix). The film takes place on their farm after the death of Graham’s wife. When “signs” start to point to the otherworldly danger coming, the life of the Hess family begins to turn even more upside down. What follows is a series of what seems to be unconnected moments that lead up to another M. Night Shyamalan twist.
The movie actually did quite well at the box office, going well over its 70 million dollar budget. But what madeSignsthe first glimpse intoShyamalan’s troubling futureto come was the movie itself. It wasn’t completely obliterated by critics and fans, but there definitely wasn’t the excitement after its release thatThe Sixth SenseandUnbreakablehad. It was met with mild reviews that could best be summarized with “meh.”
But maybe this movie deserves a second chance twenty years after its initial release. That isn’t to say the criticisms are not valid. For the most part, the criticisms are well-founded; it does not make sense that aliens would come to a planet surrounded by the one thing that makes them literally melt. It’s also fair to say that at times, the plot can get a little muddled, with too much happening at once. But the movie doesn’t get enough recognition for what it does extremely well.
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When looking beyond theweird Shyamalan logic, this movie has a lot of weight to it. The tone and dread linger long after the credits have rolled. The opening scene alone injects a sense of dread into the audience even though it’s only a shot outside the window of the house looking outward to the cornfield. It teases so much about what is to come, especially within that same cornfield that Graham will go into multiple times while confronting what has been lingering outside his daughter’s bedroom window. But when talking about the suspense and dread ofSigns, it would be incredibly disrespectful to leave out the absolutely horrifying news scene. This moment alone leaves the longest-standing impact out of anything else from the movie. This scene occurs after Shyamalan has already thrown so much dread and suspense at the screen that not only are the characters as tense as they can be, but the audience is begrudgingly waiting for a clearer glance at what has been only been shown behind shadows. I
In another scene (eerily reminiscent ofWilliam Peter Blatty’shallway jumpscare inExorcist 3), an alien jumps out of the bushes at a child’s birthday party. This gives the audience and characters the first in-depth look at what everyone has been dreading would be a reality. What makes the scene so memorable is the confirmation of the film’s lingering dread over the movie that follows the Hess family. This scene deserves to be on more lists of the most terrifying scenes of all time.
These scenes represent the waySignsis so impactful and deserves another chance from audiences. Although the movie is subtle and mostly takes place within the crisis of this family,Signsis a movie that brings something new and different to the alien invasion genre. It’s not a war, it is a sequence of battles between a family still trying to grieve, cope, and come back together within this doomed world. It is within these individual battles that a full story begins to build into one final moment and conclusion. It may be asking a lot, but this movie deserves a second chance. Perhaps all that’s needed is a step back and take in the story that unfolds.
