War of the house

Rating: 5/10 (3 February 2006)

With 'The Sixth Sense', mysteriously-named director M. Night Shyalaman proved himself a master of certain kind of atmospheric tension. He tries to repeat the trick in 'Signs', with partial success. The start of the film is corny but undeniably gripping, and throughout he manages to conjure moments of real tension despite using the barest minimum of special effects. The limitations of this film lie more in its structure. Aliens are invading earth; but the film concentrates entirely on one family who hole up (for no particular reason) in their own house in the country, facing the menace on their own. The film thus has a feel of a ghost story (isolated family terrorised and haunted), and yet, at a time the whole earth is meant to be faced by destruction, the fate of this one family seems trivial when set in its wider context. One can also grow tired of Shyalaman's stock elements - the over-earnest loving families, the beautiful, supernaturally-aware children, the mysterious book that somehow contains at least some of the answers.
Shyalaman certainly has a skill at making this sort of movie, but 'The Sixth Sense' also had a plot that was startling and cleverly-enough constructed to disguise its essential ridiculousness. 'Signs' manifestly does not: which is not to say that it won't make your skin creep as you watch it, and more than once.