Masterful Low Key Horror!

Rating: 8/10 (30 June 2006)

It's interesting, I'd always liked this movie a lot, but watching it again after a 3 year layoff I finally see just how extraordinarily well done this is. I've watched a helluva lot of horror movies in the past 3 years, and watching this again I really see how it's on a completely different level from the vast majority of them. When it comes to creating a slow rise in tension and simply inserting the supernatural into the apparently real world 'Signs' has few peers. This relates to a small flaw, perhaps: Once we get to the climax, once we've seen all there is to see, the reality proves a little too mundane. But, the strength of the journey itself more than makes up for this slight anticlimax. This is definitely one of the very best horror movies of the new millennium.
I've heard some complain that the film lacks sight of the big picture due to its exclusive emphasis on the central family but I think that's what really makes it work, what really makes it real. After all, who cares about the big picture? We don't experience the world as a city or nation, we do it as individuals. That and it just allows us to really get to know the characters, and for Shyamalan to create full, real characters rather than just having a pack of clichÃ©s in various cities spread out across the nation. (Like you'd see in something like 'Deep Impact', for example.) Phoenix and Gibson are both absolutely great in this film, particularly Phoenix. Gibson's Graham is a little to cold and distant for us to relate to him initially, so we really connect with Phoenix's Merrill first, though I definitely came around to liking Graham as the movie went on. They're both utterly naturalistic, and manage a real severe intensity in the most emotional scenes while still avoiding any histrionics. The two children, Culkin and Breslin, are fine. I'm always leery of children having prominent roles in movies, but Shyamalan largely avoids sentimentalizing them excessively (Morgan is kind of a whiny dork) or earning cheap audience identification. (In the scenes where the kids are in the greatest peril I identified far more with Graham then with the children themselves.) Certainly, this won't be to everyone's taste as it is extremely low key up until the very end. And I don't mean this simply in the sense that it isn't violent or gory; that's true of a lot of modern horror films. The film simply refuses to show you much of anything through out the vast majority of the run time. There's a lot of noise related horror, obviously, and it goes light on the jump scares. (More amazingly, some of these scare tactics were actually surprising. Even after having seen it a couple of time before a few years back a couple of these were slightly surprising.) The film uses a particularly classic setting, the old siege on the farmhouse a la 'Night of the Living Dead'. Again, the primary siege is just so impressive because it manages real intensity despite the fact that they show you virtually nothing. The true climax is less effective, but it's still fine and is necessary from a thematic standpoint. Many people have complained about the 'twist' in this film. I've got some news for you: This movie doesn't have a twist. Morons.
In the end, however, it may be the human element that really makes this movie standout. It's just a very tragic portrait of a family that has largely fallen apart. I'll admit it, it probably goes a little to far a couple of times, but it also manages a few genuinely moving scenes, which more than compensates. (Particularly note the great scene of Graham and Merrill discussing fate late one night, and Merrill's confronting Graham after the invasion night and so on.) As I always say, I don't really insist that my movies have realistic or likable characters, but the very best ones usually do. And 'Signs' has got that. Furthermore, Shyamalan's dialogue is generally leaps and bounds beyond what you usually see in a horror film, and it's also really quite funny much of the time.
I've heard a lot of morons complain that the aliens here don't behave in a realistic fashion. I had a long-winded rant worked out in my mind, but these people aren't gonna be convinced by that, or anything, as a matter of fact, so I'll just keep it simple: It's absurd to claim that the aliens in this behave in an unrealistic fashion because we, the viewer, don't know anything about them. There are an infinite number of potential explanations for why they act as they do, and 0 reasons to believe they would behave any other way. Any supposed logic you may have come up with relating to the aliens is irrelevant, because they are wholly of and within the movie. And perhaps more to the point, this comes with the territory. Complaining about the aliens in this film is like complaining about how hardly anybody has any guns in a contemporary martial-arts film.
Yes this is a great film. Definitely Shyamalan's best in my mind, as of this moment.