Faith, Heroes, Monsters, Scares, and Twists: Ranking the Films of M. Night Shyamalan
The state of cinema is ravaged with unoriginal, unfulfilling, and downright wasteful popcorn, blockbuster filmmaking. In the past, there used to be an internal process where Hollywood was able to give directors, like M. Night Shyamalan, the launching pad necessary to create bold, inventive, creative, and even shocking cinema that had you talking about it all year long. For some (mostly white directors alongside Shyamalan), they were even able to fail, pick themselves up after the mistakes of their previous project, and were allowed to try again to recapture their commercial, critical success. There is a reverence for this way of filmmaking; in which you get to see some of your favorite directors mold themselves into the talented legends they are today, film by film, risk by risk, reward by reward.
Modern directors, however, have to follow a different path; one based on the industry’s focus on the superhero franchise filmmaking that audiences have become accustomed to see over the last fifteen or so years. Filmmakers like Chloé Zhao, Ryan Coogler, Nia DaCosta, Jon Watts, Anna Boden, Ryan Fleck, Taika Waititi and more have been pulled into the MCU machine after their smaller, intimate feature films debuted at film festivals around the world; with the magic studio capitalizing on their name and brand while they are winning awards for films a tenth the size of these spectacles budgets. This isn’t just a Marvel problem (though look at the recent news out of Comic Con about the new Avengers movies and you tell me if you feel good about the future of cinema), as many studios have collectively come together with this hivemind thought process on how the career of a director should go; rather than allow the resources to create original material and all the audience to the journey of making their film was worth it or not. But sadly, with the way things are, most of these directors are then catapulted straight into a multimillion franchise film for which they have no creative control over, loss out on the chance to mold their visual style into the film, and ultimately are blamed for any problems that arise before, during and after production (look at the treatment of Zhao by MCU fans and critics with The Eternals, which was the first film scored rotten on Rotten Tomatoes, considered a outright failure by fans of the franchise, even though she tried to push the form and was coming off of the director winning multiple Oscars for Nomadland). It makes one think about the past and what would the career of someone like M. Night Shyamalan would’ve looked like if he’d started his career today rather than in the late 1990s? One would guess that, based on his body of work, and the reactions that come from audiences (both good and bad) when you just bring up the mere mention of his name, he wouldn’t have been the chance for him to mold the extensive, unique career we’ve known to have complicated feelings with for the last three decades.
It took three films for Shyamalan to break through into pop culture, as The Sixth Sense, became a global phenomenon upon its release in 1999, sparking a chain of films to be made in the early 2000s that would be financially successful, as well as divide the critical consensus. He then took a massive dip in quality for many filmgoers, with some of the worst films of the last two decades, leading to the director taking a step back, going back to basics, and redeeming himself over the last ten years. It was a roller-coaster journey for the filmmaker Time magazine donned “the next Spielberg;” a title that put a target on his back, and put unrealistic expectations on someone just trying to make a name for himself (though it didn’t help that his ego leaned into this title sometimes in order to sell his next film, as well as the decline of quality in his signature third act twists). But now he is firmly in place as a veteran director, who makes low to mid-budget stories centered around his imaginative “high concepts;” a hook to grab a hold of the audience when you describe or show a trailer for the film you are about to see. This is something notably found in Spielberg’s filmography, as well as another filmmaker Shyamalan has been compared to over his nearly thirty-year career, Alfred Hitchcock. What remains so fascinating about Shyamalan as a figure is his ability to get an audience to fully buy into what he is selling next, regardless of how you felt about his last film. I know so many friends, some even fellow critics, who can’t stand his movies, while others are like me, and have a soft spot for one of the first “event directors” they continuously saw throughout their childhood. As his new film Trap makes its way into theaters, anticipation again is at an all-time high, making this the perfect excuse to go down the Shyamalan rabbit hole and rank his eclectic collection of highly entertaining vehicles that explore religion, the supernatural, monsters, murderers, beings from other worlds, and a plethora of third act twists that continue to shock you by their varying degree of quality.
16. After Earth (2013)
After the failure of his live-action adaptation of The Last Airbender, Shyamalan looked to go back to his roots and create something original, lining up an untitled project that would’ve reunited him with his Sixth Sense, Unbreakable leading man Bruce Willis, as well as working with stars Bradley Cooper and Gwyneth Paltrow. Instead, he shelved that potential film for a project called One Thousand A.E; an sci-fi action survival film about a father and son who crash land on Earth a millennium after mankind has abandoned it, only to have to find their way to escape the planet and return home before the creatures that live on Earth destroy them. The story tugged on the director’s heartstrings, as this was a personal story pitched to him by the creator, the film’s co-star and producer Will Smith. Smith had been wanting to make a film that would be something that could not only give him the chance to collaborate with his son Jaden again after making The Pursuit of Happyness, but also give his offspring the opportunity to become a movie star like his old man. What seemed like a good partnership from the start turn into one of the biggest production nightmares of the last fifteen years, resulting in emotionally, thematically, visually hollow experience that exposed Jaden Smith’s limitations as an actor, Will Smith’s limitations as a producer/wanna-be storyteller, with Shyamalan taking most of the blame (his name was removed from most marketing heading into opening weekend of release) for the film being another critical, box office failure in his career.
Given the multiple ghostwriters who came onto the project to try and salvage this movie from disaster, there is no wonder why Will Smith has tried his best to distance himself from this film, equating the experience of making it to Wild Wild West (another catastrophe similar to this). It is hard to call this Shyamalan’s worst film because he was mostly hired by Will Smith to set the camera, sit back, and let the actor create the film for him and his son. But he collected his check, was on set, and when it came time to point fingers by the producers and the studio, it seemed the easy target was Shyamalan; a harsh slap in the face to a director that deserved better than to be the patsy for an egocentric actor trying to forge a cinematic dynasty for his family without thinking about what it cost, in terms of credibility, to the mind given the title of director for this abomination of a film.
15. Wide Awake (1998)
Just a year before The Sixth Sense made him a household name to audiences around the world, Shyamalan’s sophomore feature film was released (it sat on the shelf for three years over fights between the director and producer Harvey Weinstein over the final cut) via a genre that you would never associate the director unless you were making fun of the logic found in some of his later films; a comedy. In Wide Awake, we follow a ten-year-old named Joshua Beal (Joseph Cross), who is trying to find answers to the ultimate question that haunts most adults; the meaning of life and death. It might seem weird for a kid to be thinking about challenging things like this at such a young age, but Josh just recently lost his grandfather (Robert Loggia) right before the start of his school year. As he navigates the day-to-day life of a young boy going through life at a private Catholic boys’ school in Philadelphia, he inches closer and closer to find the answers he is looking for as well as the peace and clarity he needs to move on from the tragic loss in his family. While the movie is a step-up from Shyamalan’s directorial debut in terms of overall resources, Wide Awake is a tonal nightmare, as it is not funny enough to be a coming of age comedy, and not dramatically compelling enough for the religious, thought provoking questions it is trying to ask via its young protagonist. This is not the fault of Cross, Loggia, or the rest of the ensemble cast that includes Denis Leary, Dana Delany, and Rosie O’Donnell, who all give fine performances. It is the silly, paint by numbers script that buries any of the film’s potential to rise above its substandard existence. Throw in one of the most baffling twist endings the director has ever written involving a literal angel being in Josh’s class, and you have the worst outright studio coming of age comedies of the 1990s. Shyamalan wanted to make us cry by the end of the film, and all I could do was laugh at how sophomoric the idea seemed to be in execution.
14. The Last Airbender (2010)
When adapting something beloved to the big screen, whether it be a book series, television show, or something else within the culture that is extremely popular, it is really important you do two things. The first thing you must as an artist is justify why your version of the story should be told; why do audiences need to see this come to life on the big screen and why you are the only person that could’ve made this movie. By then doing this, you can do the second important thing that lies in this form of adaptation; inspire, meaning that you create something that feels creatively distinct to your own style, making this world your own, while being true to the original text, and thus merging your cinematic vision to this IP. This is what happened in the 2000s with series like The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, which were massively successful mostly because of the two reasons above. But not every movie is destined for greatness, as some become some of the worst ideas ever brought to screen; case in point, The Last Airbender.
Based on the acclaimed Nickelodeon animated television series Avatar: The Last Airbender, Shyamalan’s interest in the project came from his daughters, who loved the three season series and got their Dad to watch it with them. From this personal investment came the director’s most expensive film to date, with a $150-million-dollar price tag attached to the film, and the hope that there would be two sequels if he was able to pull it off. With all of these expectations, Shyamalan’s version of this story is one of the most frustrating pieces of blockbuster filmmaking in the modern era. Not necessarily because the film is bad (though many would argue this is just as bad as After Earth), it is that the world Shyamalan created is so lifeless, making the experience of watching this movie rather boring. As someone who never has seen an episode of the show, and has no attachment that many have to this story and these characters, I was looking to find any ounce of visual creativity or emotional pathos to Aang, Sokka, or Katara’s journey, and was sadly disappointed by the entire experience watching this. And between all the casting controversies, nightmarish visual effects throughout the film, the headache inducing editing and story development, The Last Airbender failed to capture barely a spark of the magic that fans had come to love from the original show. And based on the mixed reactions to the live-action Netflix adaptation, maybe Avatar: The Last Airbender is a property best kept in its original form.
13. Praying with Anger (1992)
When making a debut feature film, it is always best to stick to something personal; something that makes your life standout amongst other filmmakers of their generation. For Shyamalan, Praying with Anger has him exploring his roots as the director takes on the lead role of Dev (his largest acting role outside of Lady in the Water and the various cameos throughout his films), an American student that returns to India to take part in a yearlong college exchange program. This was a semi-autobiographical approach for the director, whose parents immigrated to America when he was just six weeks old, and thus when he decided to make his debut as he was going to college in NYC, he went back to his homeland to create Dev’s story and become closer to the world of his ancestors. The film itself, which was never screened in theaters and is very hard to find online to watch, has all the standard trappings of a first time film, with Dev’s journey revolving around a fish out of water storyline that has him at odds with his fellow classmates, teachers, exchange family, and by the end of the movie, the entire religion of Hinduism. While that may sound rather silly (and in some aspects it is, especially the scenes where a school bully won’t stop trying to pick a fight with him, which are cringe inducing and are never explained why this guy hates him so much), there is something rather tender about Shyamalan using Dev a vessel to explore his family’s past as well as discover what kind of man he wants to be (even if the director’s performance is wonky, at best). When the film slows down and becomes contemplative over what it means to be someone stuck in the middle of two cultures that clash, that’s when the writer-director’s debut shines the brightest. The film went on to premiere at the 1993 AFI Film Festival, where it won the award for Best First Film Competition for American independent filmmakers.
12. Knock at the Cabin (2023)
A staple location used throughout the horror genre is the “cabin in the woods,” a destination that is enticing to our characters as a getaway from the distractions of their everyday lives, and for the most part, can turn that dream destination into an isolating, terrifying setting of survival. For Knock at the Cabin, Shyamalan explores a trope from the genre he’s called home throughout his career, and dives back into familiar territory he’s explored in his past films; the idea of belief and faith within his characters. Based on Paul G. Tremblay’s novel The Cabin at the End of the World, we are introduced to a family of three (Ben Aldridge and Jonathan Groff as the parents, Kristen Cui as their daughter) who are enjoying their vacation until they are interrupted by four strangers, led by Leonard (Dave Bautista), who break into the cabin, tie up the family, and force them to make a horrific choice; they have to sacrifice a member of their family in order to save the world from facing the apocalypse. It is an unthinkable, bone chilling premise that locks the viewer in from the moment the four strangers arrive, forcing the two fathers, and the audience, to decide if what is going on really is the end of the world, or if this is a delusion created by a group of disturbed individuals. At the same time, Knock at the Cabin is a fascinating examination of parental trust, and how much you really know your partner once you’ve brought a child into your home. The things that shutters the film from being an all timer from Shyamalan is that he focuses on too many flashbacks from these characters, showing too much backstory and not leaving enough mystery behind these complex characters. Also, for a man known for his third act twists, it is a rather safe conclusion for our main family, which is ironic considering he changed the ending of the film from the book; a far more gruesome, sinister ending which this film could’ve used. Knock at the Cabin is a cool premise, containing a fantastic performance from Bautista, that’s more interesting to talk about afterwards rather than watch as a collective film.
11. The Visit (2015)
Riding off the two biggest disasters anyone could have within their career with The Last Airbender and After Earth, Shyamalan needed a fresh start; to go back to basics and get out of the world of $100-million-dollar action movies. But what do you do when your name is damaged goods and no one will give you the smallest amount of money to even finance your low budget, found footage horror film; you take a loan out against your home to finance the film and beat on yourself, which is exactly what the director did with The Visit. The film centers around two kids (Olivia DeJonge, Ed Oxenbould) who are sent by their mother (Kathryn Hahn) to go stay with their estranged grandparents for a 5-day vacation while she goes on a cruise with her new boyfriend (which honestly, I would watch the hell out of a movie where Kathryn Hahn gets to let it all loose on a cruise ship; someone make this happen). Everything seems fine at first when the kids meet their grandparents (Deanna Dunagan, Peter McRobbie), but the sun goes down, and the clock hits 9:30 pm, their grandparents start becoming more and more unhinged as the night goes on, forcing the kids to have to fight for their lives as their family reunion takes a shocking turn for the worst. Fascinated with the idea of “sundowning” and wanted to strip back any fantastical element usually associated with his previous films, Shyamalan made a successful return to form with a truly creepy entry into to the found footage subgenre of horror, while also showing the industry at large that he still had plenty of good stories and twists left in the tank. Note to all filmmakers, sometimes going smaller with your next project is the correct move.
10. Split (2016)
Building off the success of The Visit, Shyamalan self-financed his next project based around a character he had been building in his mind for over the course of his career. The idea of suspense thriller centered around a troubled young man (James McAvoy, in a top tier performance of his career), who had multiple personalities, for whom control him and forced him to kidnap three teenage girls, and use them as sacrificial lambs awaiting judgment from a mysterious, dangerous being known as “The Beast.” Split not only expertly follows our kidnapper Kevin Wendell Crumb (who also goes by Dennis, Patricia, Hedwig, Barry, Orwell, Jade and more) as we see his origins of who he really is and how he got to this point of villainy, but we also spend an equal amount of time with Casey (Anya Taylor-Joy), an equally fascinating individual that, just like Kevin, has been left scarred by her abusive past, and has closed herself off to the world, unable to trust anyone but herself in order to survive. His twenty-four personalities collided against her once broken but now sturdy spirit in a shocking battle between two broken souls that is both grounded in frightening violence and unbelievable, supernatural elements that fit perfectly together in this psychological thriller. If that was all Split was then it would be a solid film that continued to land Shyamalan back in the good graces of audiences and proved that The Visit wasn’t a fluke. Instead, as the events of the film are being wrapped up, Shyamalan delivered a twist that sent shockwaves throughout the film world from the moment the film premiered at the 2016 Fantastic Fest Film Festival in Austin, TX to its premiere in theaters in January 2017; revealing that Split was a spin off film set within the world of Unbreakable. When I saw this for the first time, my mouth was on the floor, as with the rest of my audience, as we couldn’t believe what was going on. Even though the reveal in hindsight doesn’t really affect the overall quality of Split, and would get paid off immediately with his next film, it is still one hell of a twist that will rank high in the director’s canon.
9. Glass (2019)
Three years later, after turning the film world upside down with the ending of Split, Shyamalan firmly returned to the world he created at the beginning of the millennium with a third installment to the Unbreakable franchise, Glass. The film follows David Dunn (Bruce Willis), now known as “The Overseer,” who is solving crimes all around the city one bad guy at a time. As he sees at the end of Split, Dunn is intrigued by hunting down and stopping Kevin Wendell Crumb (McAvoy) before he harms anyone else. For the first thirty minutes of the film, we get a straight up superhero, supervillain film, with Dunn going toe to toe with Crumb, showcasing each man’s strength and willingness to fight for what they think is their version of justice. But in the middle of their fight, they are captured by the police and placed into the care of Dr. Ellie Staple (a menacing Sarah Paulson), and taken to a psychiatric facility, where Dunn, Crumb, and Elijah Price (Samuel L. Jackson) aka Mr. Glass, are forced to examine if they really do have supernatural powers, or is it all a trick of the mind and they are just dangerous people. There is a divide in the fandom as to what this movie was supposed to be, as supposed to what we got. Fans of the series will argue that we deserved a proper comic book movie where Dunn, Crumb, and Price face off against each other like something out of a comic book. For me, the film we got is a much more interesting, challenging exercise that forces the audience to reckon with what we normally expect from the comic book film genre and how we settle for whatever seems right from shadowy corporate machines only looking to turn a profit instead of making interesting art that we can talk about. Glass is a messy yet engrossing commentary on the creative process from the mind of a man that was begged by studios to make a sequel to Unbreakable, not knowing that one day, when he did, he would make a messy little film suitable for the world he created, uncompromised within his own vision, shining a light on the industry’s golden goose for the last decade plus.
8. Lady in the Water (2006)
At this point of his career, Shyamalan was riding high off of four smash hits, giving him the freedom to make whatever he wanted with his seventh film. Instead of making another straight up horror film, the director took a different path, deciding to make a fantasy thriller for kids with Lady in the Water. The genesis of this project was based on a bedtime story that Shyamalan created to tell his daughters at night right before they went to sleep. They loved it so much, he could see their engagement in the story (which is both a good thing for him as a storyteller but bad as a father, as his kids aren’t going to sleep), that he figured he could stretch this story out into a full length feature. Set in an apartment complex within Philadelphia, a lowly superintendent named Cleveland (Paul Giamatti) finds Story (Bryce Dallas Howard) swimming in the community pool late one night, only to discover she is a water nymph who is trying to return whom to her “blue world” before she is successfully hunter down by a dangerous, wolf-like creature called a Scrunt. Whimsical, ambitious, adventurous, sentimental, and with a dash of pretentiousness, Lady in the Water is a welcomed swing from Shyamalan that’s aged well as a modern fairy tale about the everyday person mattering in a story grander than they ever could’ve dreamed. As Cleveland and the rest of the tenants (who include veteran actors like Jeffrey Wright, Bill Irwin, Jared Harris, and more) come together to find a way to get Story home, we see the embodiment of the human spirit come together; people who were at odds with one another throughout the film becoming a community and saving the life of this person for the sake of the greater good. It’s a moving statement by Shyamalan to put in a family film, and one that emotionally pays off for our main characters in a beautiful, tender way by the final frame. (Side note: It is still wild that the only character that dies in the film is a critic played by the great Bob Balaban. I see what you are doing M. Night, and as someone who is now in the profession, I understand it too, we can be the worst sometimes.)
7. The Happening (2008)
When The Happening came out in 2008, the reviews were so bad, not a single person in my family wanted to go see the movie with me (they have still never seen the film). Being that this was Shyamalan’s first R rated movie of his career, I did what most people of my generation did to see an R rated movie. I snuck in to see what the fuss was all about, considering it was being called the worst movie of the year, possibly even the decade. I’d heard this noise before with The Village and Lady in the Water, so I’ve grown accustomed to the idea of going into a new Shyamalan movie ready to take it at face value and disregard the chatter surrounding it. I sat down, the movie started, and I was pleasantly shocked, left speechless at what I was watching. What took years for people to articulate was best summed up by the two strangers sitting next to me (thank you to whoever you were), as one of them said “What are we watching?” to which the other person replied “I don’t know, but can’t stop watching it.”
Shopped around Hollywood with the original title “The Green Effect,” The Happening follows a high school science teacher (an incredibly terrible Mark Wahlberg), his wife (Zooey Deschanel), and a group of survivors as they are on the run from a natural disaster that is causing people to kill themselves at an alarming rate across the United States. The movie is an elevated, expensive B-movie, as well as a masterpiece of the film category known as “so bad that it’s good.” Every decision feels like it is both the worst choice imaginable and also the correct choice for the movie that Shyamalan was trying to make. He set out to make a cautionary tale about climate change, natural selections, and our human instincts in handling a crisis. All of those goals remain intact, as well some of the goofiest dialogue ever written, the cheapest R-rated kills found in just about any horror film, and a legendary sequence between Wahlberg and Betty Buckley that is both baffling and hilarious at the same time (Her line of “Plan on murdering me in my sleep?” followed by his “What? No!” is pure camp). The Happening is a pure guilty pleasure movie that morphed into the director’s best comedy (unintentionally) within his career. You have not lived till you see Mark Wahlberg talk to the plants.
6. Old (2021)
Shyamalan’s first film of the 2020s found the director delivering the best film adaptation of his career, with material that perfectly suited him as a master of suspense and high concepts. Centering around a family who is going on vacation right before the two parents (Gael Garcia Bernal, Vicky Krieps) are about to divorce, they are invited by the hotel manager to a private beach alongside three other parties, with a glorious, secluded VIP experience. Everything is peaceful till they discover the remains of a human body on the beach, and start to notice strange things happening to their loved ones. More importantly, they start aging at a rapid pace, with the children becoming teenagers in a matter of minutes, with the older members of the group aging into their senior years. It is a highly entertaining modern chamber piece that had some of the best scares found within the back half of Shyamalan’s career; featuring a body horror scene that morphs one of the characters into a spider-like creature that is downright haunting. Mixed within the fantastical elements thought lies intriguing commentaries on human vanity, wealth, materialism, and the sinister cost of scientific discovery at the cost of the innocent (with that last part being tied into the screwy ending). But what works best within Old is actually it’s most scary, realistic message found within its most grounded storyline of the film; the relationship between Bernal and Krieps’ characters and how not only they have to say goodbye to their children long before they want to, but realize how much they love each other right before they parish. It is a simple thing to put in your film, yet Shyamalan shows his maturity as not just a filmmaker, but as a parent and husband looking to face the thing that scares him the most in the eye, and talk about it in a vulnerable, heightened way in which he can only do. (Side note: Aaron Pierre’s character “Mid-Sized Sedan” is a top tier character name, one of the best of the decade so far.)
5. Trap (2024)
On the anniversary weekend release of The Village, where audiences started to test their loyalty with Shyamalan, his latest release finds the director delivering his most realistic concept to date, while simultaneously making his best film in twenty years with Trap. Inspired by Operation Flagship, a sting operation that took down over a hundred criminals with the promise of giving away NFL tickets and an all-inclusive trip to the Super Bowl, Shyamalan takes his “operation,” to the next level, setting it at an Eras Tour-esque concert. We follow Cooper Adams (Josh Hartnett), a local Philadelphia firefighter who took the day off of work to take his daughter Riley (Ariel Donoghue) to see her favorite pop star Lady Raven (Saleka Shyamalan, the director’s daughter) perform downtown. As we hilariously watch Cooper put on a happy face while he is among the other parents that have to put up with painful surroundings and circumstances that has become the obsessive, dangerous pop-music concert scene (they aren’t wrong, the only videos alone over the past two summers of how concert goers have behaved are a worrying sign of the times), he starts to notice that something is off. Dozens of police office and federal agents have blocked off every exit to the building, working on a hunch that a local serial killer known as “The Butcher” could be at this concert, thus the event has turning into the titular trap, and the authorities are hoping to catch the killer before the final song plays. The thing is, Cooper is the killer and does not intend on being caught today; so he starts to frantically look for his way out without also making it obvious to his beloved daughter that something is very wrong with her father.
On the surface, Shyamalan has crafted another gripping thriller as we see Cooper find every possible way to get out of that building alive before he is picked up. Every placement of the camera gives us a mirror into the chase to hunt down Cooper, as well as look into his mind as he is processing his next move. The fading in and out of light during the concert mixed with several excellent tracking shots as we follow Cooper looking for an exit, alongside some killer POV shots in the latter part of the concert; each speaking as a testament to the expert work by cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom, editor Noëmi Preiswerk. But if you dig a little deeper (as this list has proven you must do), Shyamalan displays a cautionary tale of domesticity, the generation damage caused by those whom look to harm the ones we love, and how they can be essentially anyone, at any time, could be that killer standing right next to you as you are looking to get into the latest concert or movie. Within this narrative lies Harnett at the center of all of this, producing a career best performances as he dances back from being in control to slowly unraveling into the monster we’ve heard about throughout the film (“slices people up like deli meat” should give you an indication of the type of evil that lies under the surface).At the same time, without getting into spoilers, Shyamalan rightfully questions the moral responsibilities that lay at the feet of those who have reached a certain level of fandom, and just how powerful their voices could be if they stuck their neck out for something than just the almighty dollar, but rather the average person sitting in the stands, looking to cheer you on as they are about to play their favorite song. For lesser directors, they wouldn’t have been able to pull this film off because Shyamalan’s cinematic voice is too unique; striking just the right tone between menacing, sincere, absorbing, and playful.In a summer that has delivered mixed results from commercial studios and filmmakers, Shyamalan has given some the best of what we always ask from him; give us thoroughly entertaining, captivating, heart-pounding, goofy time at the movies. (Side note: Every Lady Raven song in the film is a total bop and I will be listening to the soundtrack the rest of the summer. Move over Charli xcx, it’s Trap summer now!)
4. The Village (2004)
Shyamalan took a left turn from his usual modern settings for his next thriller, setting it within a 19th-century period piece about a small village that lives within the woods of Pennsylvania. A mostly peaceful community during the day is led by the fear of what haunts them at night, creatures from the outside of their walls, known as “Those We Don’t Speak Of;” monsters who wear red cloaks and have sharp scales on their back. The town is led by a council of elders, all for whom permission must be granted in order to leave their home to go to a place called “the towns,” another community that lies beyond their borders, who has supplies they don’t possess. But when Lucius Hunt (Joaquin Phoenix), a boy curious about going to “the towns” is attacked and left brutally injured, the love of his life, Ivy Walker (Bryce Dallas Howard in her breakout role) must venture into the woods to go to “the towns” to get the medical supplies needed to save his life. Blind and forced by her father (William Hurt), the head of the town elders, to take a few companions for her safety, she treks down a dangerous path that puts her face to face with unspeakable horrors, as well as shocking revelations.
All of this is more than enough of a plot to scare the hell out audiences (the sequences in the woods alone had me covering my eyes when I was a kid), but the actual horror lies within the community itself, as it is reveals that the true monsters are actually the town elders in disguise, using the fear monsters to keep their paradise intact from people asking too many questions. Furthermore, we come to the realization that they aren’t actually in the 19th century, but their community is isolated by the outside world as part of a deal paid off by the US government via a cash in hand deal by Elder Walker’s family fortune, that owns the land their community lives in. While many thought these twists were too complicated and ridiculous when the film was released, The Village takes the appropriate amount of time to ask the characters, and the audience, if what the elders are doing is the right thing, rather than allowing the truth to be told, thus breaking the innocence of the world they built. But when that innocence is built on a lie, what is the responsibility of those in charge to do the right thing? It is a morally captivating examination of what the truth really is, led by impeccable direction by Shyamalan, beautiful cinematography by the legendary Roger Deakins, and an elegant score from James Newton Howard that ranks as one of the best of his celebrated career.
3. Unbreakable (2000)
Late in the 2000s brought on the MCU and the superhero takeover within our culture, so before all of that took place, the beginning of the new millennium saw Shyamalan deliver one of the best comic book movies of all time with Unbreakable. David Dunn (Willis) is sitting on a train back home from a job interview in New York, as he is looking to leave Philadelphia as his marriage to his wife Audrey (Robin Wright) is falling apart. While this new job would separate him from his son Joseph (Spencer Treat Clark), a change of scenery is a must for him. But everything in Dunn’s life changes when he becomes the sole survivor of a train derailment that saw the lives of 131 passengers lost in the crash, while he was able to walk away without a scratch on him. Shortly after his recovery, he realizes that he has superhuman abilities (super strength and the ability to see danger by touching other humans), and draws the attention of a comic book store owner named Elijah Price, who sees that David has abilities similar to him, and wants to use their gifts for his own villainous agenda that is revealed in the film’s final confrontation. As a traditional comic book movie, Unbreakable is a great origin story that dives perfectly into the trope of the genre while setting up the world and scared background of both Dunn and Price’s characters. What elevates the film overall is Shyamalan’s writing, which is layered throughout with tons of questioning and inner conflict within David’s hero’s journey, as he doesn’t know whether it is right to use these powers at all, or hide from who he was born to be. At the same time, we see the growing frustrations and limitations of Elijah’s body as well as his blossoming into “Mr. Glass,” the foil to David’s vigilante hero. While we were able to get a continuation of this story with Split and Glass, they pale in comparison to this intelligently patient, grounded superhero thriller that is far more focused on the complexity of its characters rather than the boring, CGI spectacles we’ve become accustomed to in the genre.
2. The Sixth Sense (1999)
1999 was one of the best years of cinema, and inside that fantastic year of extraordinary films lies one of the most influential, popular films of all time that ended up being the surprise smash hit of the year, The Sixth Sense. Centered around child psychologist Malcolm Crowe (Willis), and his relationship with a new patient, Cole (Haley Joel Osment), a nine-year-old who has isolated himself from his mother (Toni Collette) and everyone at school because of the dark secret he is hiding. As Malcolm and Cole talk throughout the film, they form a friendly bond, to which Cole feels comfortable enough with him to unmask his secret; he can see and communicate with dead people. That moment set shockwaves around the world, along with the third act revelation that Willis’ Cole had been dead the whole time, that catapulted The Sixth Sense into the zeitgeist as one of the most talked about films of 1999. But beyond its twists and turns lies a delicate story about broken people needing help to not only confront who they really are, but how communication and trust is essential for human growth. In doing this, Cole is able to conquer the fears of his gifts, as well as finally being able to talk to his mother about his gifts, merging his family back together with his honesty in the scene of the film where he is in the car telling his mother about the conversations he’s had with his grandmother, who passed away several years before the events of the film. At the same time, this allows Malcolm to accept his fate as a spirit, leaving his wife in peace, no matter how painful it is to say goodbye to the person you love the most. He redeems himself by helping Cole, and is able to rest easy knowing he’s done some form of good in this world. Twenty-five years later, and The Sixth Sense is more than just jump scares and viral moments; it is a patient masterwork by Shyamalan, with vital, precise editing by Andrew Mondshein, and a trio of incredible performances by Willis, Osment, and Collette that are some of the best the director has ever put to screen within his career. Trust me, this thing is still as good as the first time you saw it.
1. Signs (2002)
While many would consider The Sixth Sense to be Shyamalan’s best work, my favorite has always been Signs, but the film in his filmography that expertly tackles a subject he’s commented on one way or another throughout his filmography; faith. Set within a small town in rural Pennsylvania, Graham Hess(Mel Gibson), a former Episcopal priest, lives on a farm alongside his brother Merrill (Joaquin Phoenix), and his two children Morgan and Bo (Rory Culkin, Abigail Breslin). Graham has isolated himself on his farm, giving up his life as a priest after a car accident took the life of his wife, thus blaming God for the loss of the love of his life. Early one morning, the Hess family discover a series of crop circles in the cornfields next to their home, wondering if this is a prank by some local kids or something far more dangerous that caused this. Slowly over the course of the film, the family learns that this isn’t an isolated, or even local incident, as dozens of signs of an extraterrestrial invasion start popping up around the world. As just an alien invasion film, Signs is the scariest film Shyamalan has ever made, patiently allowing the tension to build up right to the pitch perfect amount of suspense necessary to terrify the audience. I remember having nightmares for weeks after seeing the film, especially the scene where Graham uses a kitchen knife to look under a pantry door to take a look at one of the alien creatures, only to then cut off its fingers shortly after. Shyamalan, alongside cinematographer Tak Fujimoto, also expertly use the darkness of night in the cornfield and the within the climatic third act basement sequences, as well as another brilliant score by James Newton Howards, to strike the right balance of mood between heightened anxiety and spiritual acceptance, thus the level of threat grows for you as an audience member as much as it does for the Hess family.
Beyond the scares lies the real beauty of the film, and that is Graham’s journey to rediscover his faith in God, and his heartfelt connection back to his family. People grieve differently, with Graham renouncing his faith and going about his days as if he was a ghost in his own house. But as his family and the world is going on this journey of discovery, he blocks it out, refusing to believe any of this is real because it seems too far-fetched; it’s all coincidental. To a certain point, Graham isn’t wrong, as Signs does briefly showcase the dangers of obsession to a subject matter through the eyes of his family member’s glued to every new piece of information told to them on the television set. But when does obsession become reality, fiction becomes fact, and you are still fighting every urge to believe what is happening around you, then who is the one stuck in denial and needing to see the light. Through his brother and his kids, Graham is able to become reborn, finding his purpose to his kin that he lost months ago when he lost his wife Colleen. When he is trying to save Morgan’s life as he is having an asthmatic episode during the climax of the film, we are witnessing a man fight to not only save his son, but to prevent himself going back into a place of darkness he never wants to experience again. Signs is Shyamalan at the height of his powers, able to weave every element of this movie together without a gimmick or twist; instead focusing primarily on the evolution of flawed individuals and how it is never too late to believe.
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