A film about the signs of faith that can heal a family's wounds

Rating: 9/10 (19 March 2010)

With more than 2000 IMDb viewers' responses, Signs certainly seems to have stirred up film watchers' imaginations. My comment here will be brief because I don't want to add to the general mayhem the movie seems to have generated; but having read even a few opinions, I am convinced some things need to be cleared up.
First, Shaymalan, like Spielberg (and many other Hollywood directors who don't admit it,) is by his own description a B movie director; he makes no pretensions towards creating art, except for the masses. Viewers should not necessarily expect subtlety or technical brilliance in films intended to provide large audiences with a campy version of horror. Viewers can enjoy Shaymalan's films for their eccentric views of horror or special effects, films strong on mood and atmosphere but not necessarily on plot or character.
Signs, however, surpasses these limitations, and is clearly the director's best effort so far -- despite himself, he has made a good film. No need to mention the masterful building of suspense that he achieves here -- even the film's critics acknowledge it. And the moment much-talked-about -- the "Brazilian video" birthday party -- will scare you indeed. Small children may indeed be terrified. I am not a small child, and I was.
To view this film with some objectivity, ask yourself not what you as a viewer look for in a film, but what the director intended to achieve in it. A so-called lack of plausibility, for instance (understood as a lack of 'believable plot') actually has the purpose of deflecting us from the real horror of the characters' lives: their inability to come to terms with the death of their mother and spouse. Whether or not an alien race would evolve enough technology to travel through space but not enough to break out of a locked room is irrelevant to the sense of terror that our awareness that there is an alien in that locked room actually causes. Clearly the film is not 'about' an alien invasion or some other preposterous nonsense, but about this family, torn apart by guilt and grief over the death of the mother, and how one singular experience -- I will not reveal it in case there may be someone out there who has yet to see the film, but it involves being locked in a cellar -- changes their lives by bringing them face to face with the unaccountable and mysterious gift that life is -- and that sharing this gift amongst the living demands the defence of the living, and requires sacrifice to protect them -- far worthier than wasting one's life in the doubt and despair that the death of a loved one can cause.
Shyalaman thus raises the question of faith and the value, indeed the need, of hope. Family is worth protecting; those we love are worth our sacrifice in defending them. That is the purpose of using the 'macguffin' device of the crop destruction (as this is a basic plot line I do not believe mentioning it counts as a spoiler) for this is what sets in motion the long string of events that ends up bringing the family to its epiphany, or moment of revelation.
I find it odd, really, that so many viewers seem to think that only 'pure' horror (which I suspect means gory or bloody) or 'pure' science fiction (which I suspect means science fantasy, as one might find it in Lynch's Dune or one of the Star Wars films) can guarantee a stylish, satisfying entertainment. Cearly films like these can offer an exciting escape from boredom. Signs, on the other hand, eschews the sensationalism of science fiction to focus on what actions are necessary in life to maintain faith and love in a world increasingly disoriented, violent, and destructive.