M. Night Shyamalan has emerged as one of the more divisive filmmakers in recent years, a far cry from the praise he received when he burst onto the scene with The Sixth Sense. I’ve seen some of his movies (I’ve watched The Last Airbender probably 10 times and it is funnier every single time) but I’d never seen a few of his better-regarded entries, so therefore we have the Shyamathon! I watched these over a few days and there is more Shyamalan in my head than I ever wanted. How did this all go? Let’s get right to it with The Sixth Sense! 

The Sixth Sense

Summary: A past his prime child psychiatrist gives his all to help a young boy escape a dark fate that overtook one of his previous clients. But the boy has a bizarre secret that may be his doom – or his salvation.

Exceptional fairy tale masquerading as a horror film. Great cast giving their all to tell an emotional story that’s a tad oversimplified but never distractingly so. Bruce Willis is, unfortunately, kind of a joke these days, but he’s great here, and so is the one-of-a-kind Toni Collette. Haley Joel Osment surprised me a lot, standards for child actors in movies have gone up a lot in recent years, but Osment’s performance holds up! If I watched this without already knowing what the twist was, I’d have been surprised and delighted. Holds up if you already know the twist, but I’d imagine there’s an, ‘Ohhhh!’ moment from seeing the twist as intended and reevaluating the film based on what you know then. Still, very enjoyable and I can see why everyone rallied around Shyamalan after this. (1st time viewing)

Signs

Summary- When mysterious crop circles appear on the farm of a family still coming to grips with a tragic loss, no one knows quite what to make of them. As the circles spread and panic grips the world, all the lingering problems of this family come to a dramatic head when they’re forced to deal with an otherworldly threat.

 Oh, Signs. I’ll say right off the bat that I’m deeply nostalgic for this movie. It’s the first Shyamalan movie I saw, and even though it has a lot of problems I can’t help but like it. Firstly, it is quite unfortunate that Mel Gibson is the lead here, which I know will already be a dealbreaker for a lot of people (me included), but his performance is, as usual, pretty good. That’s something I do appreciate, Shyamalan seems to be a good director of actors, the performances in his movies are typically great, but it helps when you have Joaquin Phoenix and a very young Abigail Breslin on hand. I admire the cinematography here, there are a lot of excellent shots and a general eerie atmosphere that works for me. But, a lot of Shyamalan’s troubling quirks come to light here, I assume the result of him having more creative freedom after the blockbuster success of The Sixth Sense. Shyamalan’s role in the movie is much more prominent, both in terms of screen time and importance to the plot, with the added bonus of him being exceptionally knowledgeable and insightful about the nature of an unknown threat. Also, I find the central point of the movie to be downright offensive, but I still can’t say I hate Signs. It works too well as a family drama-thriller, even if a lot of the messages are groan-worthy.

The Village

Summary – Life in a quaint and isolated village is complicated by the woods that are said to house man-eating monsters, monsters who hold a tenuous peace with the people of this village.

If this were a short film, it would probably be brilliant. Like most of Shyamalan’s work, there are good visuals and a good cast, but the meager story is stretched far beyond its means. The twist isn’t necessarily bad, I just don’t much care for its placement in the movie. If it had been a plot point at the end of Act 1, that would be really interesting and could set the stage for a unique story about Society, Man. With it coming so late in the movie, it feels less like a storytelling tool and more like someone nudging you with their elbow while saying, ‘Huh? Huh? Bet you didn’t see that coming!’. Part of the issue is that Shyamalan seems to enjoy making movies that don’t necessarily conform to traditional story structures. Which is fine, but I don’t think there’s enough here to support what Shyamalan is trying to do. The third act is really frustrating, particularly when the ‘horror movie’ stuff starts happening, and I can’t say I enjoyed this movie. Also, this is the first time a completely superfluous ‘dude who is dangerous because he has a mental disorder’ is included, but it won’t be the last!

Lady In The Water

Summary: There’s this lady you see. She’s in the water. Then she’s not in the water. Then Paul Giamatti has to help her get back in the water. This is shockingly difficult.

Fuck this movie. The sheer self-indulgence of Shyamalan’s story of Narfs and Scrunts is staggering, and his character of a ‘writer whose writing is so good that it changes the world’ is laughable. The audacity of including a dumb jerk film critic whose only job in-universe is to be loathed by everyone, be wrong about everything, and then die, is the icing on the cake, especially when only 1 of his movies even got negative reception from critics thus far. There’s barely a story present, and what is here is not something that should have been in a movie. The bloated cast is not as endearing as Shyamalan seems to think they are, and the runtime is absurdly overlong, starting with a baffling opening animation. I can respect Shyamalan making a movie for himself, but at this point why even release it when your goal was to make a movie that is literally an adaptation of a bedtime story you made up for your kids? I don’t blame Shyamalan for the deceptive marketing, that’s all on the studio, but I do blame him for everything else. Lady in the Water feels like a Guillermo Del Toro movie with a tragic case of brain damage. Paul Giamatti is good though.

The Happening

Summary: An environmental calamity overtakes Philadelphia, forcing our heroes on the run from the goofiest apocalypse I’ve seen since Gyo. 

Never before have I been left with so many questions about the conception of a movie. Why bring in Mark Wahlberg and Zooey Deschanel who are woefully miscast and have negative chemistry? Why make the threat here rustling plants, complete with ominous shots of the wind moving tree branches? Why have so much bizarre dialogue? Why not open with the genuinely good scene at the construction site and not the silly park sequence? Why try to make a fun B movie when fun B movies nearly all happen by accident? Whether or not Shyamalan made a terrible movie on purpose will probably be debated until the end of time, but he definitely made a movie that needs to be seen to be believed. If you’re one of the few people who has not seen The Happening, get some friends, get some drinks (just so long as you aren’t eyeing my lemon drink), and check this out. It is glorious nonsense.

The Visit

Summary: A visit to estranged family members takes an odd turn for two children who are more than a little concerned about the increasingly bizarre behaviors shown by their grandparents. (THIS CONTAINS SPOILERS)

 I have a love-hate relationship with found footage movies so I was pretty excited to check out Shyamalan’s only found footage film so far, which has actually gotten positive reviews. I am of two distinct minds after viewing The Visit, the first being that this is kind of a return to form for Shyamalan. Shyamalan’s eye for visuals and skill with actors are here, there are a bunch of sequences that stick out in my mind as effective and creepy, both for their clever filmmaking and solid performances. As always there’s a neat little premise that probably would have been better served in a short film rather than a feature, but that’s just par for the course with Shyamalan. That being said, there are a few things here that got to me. I don’t want to pick on the actors, they’re just working with what they’re given, but the two lead characters are the most annoying people I have seen in film for a very long time. An aspiring filmmaker who speaks loftily about everything and a 12-year-old white rapper are difficult characters to get right. The Visit does not get them right. Whenever they were on screen I wanted them to leave. Whenever they were talking, I wanted them to not be talking. That’s kind of a problem when both of these characters are in 90% of the movie. 

That leads to another problem I have with Shyamalan’s entire career. He just cannot let go of his favorite trope, which is that people with mental disorders, any kind of mental disorder, are dangerous. The Sixth Sense gets a pass because of the circumstances of the character who is violent, but it also appears in The Village, Split, and Old, so this is the fourth film where someone having a mental issue is evil and violent. Because that’s the twist here, the twist is that the grandparents that the kids meet aren’t their real grandparents, they are elderly mental patients who escaped from a nearby mental hospital. Come on. Have a little respect for the audience. Put this stupid cliche to rest. As the evidence piled more and more in the corner of these two being crazy I begged for any other twist; aliens, demonic possession, magic, anything but this. But I ain’t that lucky, and any positive feelings I had towards The Visit fizzled out as the stupidity of the twist overtook me. (1st time viewing) (END SPOILERS)

Conclusion:

Shyamalan is a difficult filmmaker. He fixates on certain concepts; narrative twists, fairy tales, stories set near Philadelphia (I think all of these movies at least start near Philly), and keeps going back to them because that’s what he likes his movies to be about. I like twists and fairy tales, never been to Philadelphia (but there are some great people I’ve met from there), but I’m not particularly passionate about any of these things. That’s okay though, sometimes you have gotta say that a particular filmmaker’s stuff just isn’t for you. I respect that Shyamalan makes movies about things that he’s into, even if I don’t get them, and I wish him the best in future endeavors, but I don’t think I’ll be checking out his new movies. I mean, I might, cause of this website but, like, I won’t be thrilled about it. I would recommend giving his movies a try if you aren’t familiar with his work, at the very least The Sixth Sense, because maybe his thing is your thing too.