Reheated Sixth Sense with a fundamentalist message

Rating: Null/10 (15 September 2002)

This is a reasonably atmospheric and scary film, but only because it's directed in the same style as the vastly superior Sixth Sense (including the use of the colour red to signal turning points). What is really disturbing is the message behind it. At first the idea seemed so silly that I assumed it was a satire on the less intelligent side of religion. It was frightening to find that the concept, that all things happen for some divine reason and every bit of luck is proof of God, was being taken seriously by viewers (and probably by the director too).
SPOILER: I found the idea that the son had asthma to protect him from the alien gas particularly nasty, considering the number of people who die from that condition. SPOILER END
This is the kind of idea that gets religion a bad name, and leads the gullible to fundamentalism. Especially worrying when violence for the sake of faith is causing such terrible problems.