Signs of talent...

Rating: 9/10 (10 August 2002)

Ok, after just seeing this movie, I could go on & on about Shyamalan and how his work is welcomed like a breath of fresh air, especially amid these stupid teenager-partying/slasher insults. But I'll just get to the point and say that if you enjoy horror/suspense/sci-fi at all, and you liked Sixth Sense and/or Unbreakable, this movie is for you. It's creepy, it's cool, it's crafty and it's entertaining. It taps into a virtually untouched source of mystery and uses it to unleash one of the greatest films about close encounters since, well, Close Encounters of the Third Kind. But Shyamalan has this great sense of incorporating something freaky into a scene, and then not always providing the punchline for it. It leaves you a little unfulfilled and it's a good thing. Much like that scene in Sixth Sense when Cole gets locked in the little room at the top of the stairs and you know he gets attacked but you never really know who or what did it to him, or what really happened. The kids in Signs are very close to being believable and although Mel overacts as usual, the movie makes up for it with lots of dark corners and realistically creepy scenes. Two hours haven't flown by that fast in a long time...