The most intimate invasion movie ever made?

Rating: 10/10 (6 September 2002)

"The Twilight Zone" once had an episode called "The Invaders" set entirely in a farmhouse, with a woman (Agnes Moorehead) battling a pair of tiny aliens; Richard Matheson, who wrote that episode, was not enamoured of the final product, claiming it was too slow and that the aliens looked ridiculous - and they do. Creatures that look like the Michelin Man are nowhere to be found in the thematically similar "Signs," but it does take its time. All to the good, it turns out.
Whatever the M in "M. Night Shyamalan" stands for, it clearly isn't "Modest" - he's given himself cameos in both "The Sixth Sense" and "Unbreakable," and for this movie he's upgraded himself to what's practically a supporting role, although a key one. Still, it can be forgiven when the whole thing works as well as this; set in a small Pennsylvania town, disillusioned widowed ex-priest Mel Gibson discovers that his farm has become home to some very elaborate crop circles. At first he and his brother (Joaquin Phoenix) feel it's a prank, but then more start to appear... and I'll let other contributors spoil the plot. Suffice to say there's no twist ending this time, and that in spite of their prominent billing in the opening titles, Industrial Light and Magic visual effects supervisors Eric Brevig and Stefen Fangmeier are ultimately not the film's stars.
The movie stays at a regular level for a lot of its length, setting up a perfectly realised world with plenty of well-judged character moments (the son's asthma, the daughter's irrational fear of drinking water, etc) - though there are plenty of intentionally amusing moments (people keep turning to Gibson's character for spiritual guidance even though he's no longer of the cloth), the movie's never allowed to become camp; when Shyamalan starts to turn the screws, the humour drains away but the tension doesn't. Most of what's happening elsewhere is related to us via the family's TV set (just as it would be in real life) and whatever the menace is is kept out of sight most of the time (until the climax, that is) - our hero's first reaction to getting a glimpse of it is to run like hell back to the house! Cowardly? Maybe, but you or I would almost certainly do the same thing...
Ultimately, the ability to bring an alien invasion down to human terms, to make it more of an emotional experience than an all-out action yarn a la "Independence Day" is one of the biggest plusses of the movie; the finale may seem absurd to some, but in the context of the laws "Signs" sets itself it's no cop-out. Unlike "The X-Files" it doesn't try and string you along endlessly, instead bringing everything together. It's not all-out horror, but it is endlessly absorbing and pretty scary, bolstered by the director's cast, the restrained special effects, and James Newton Howard's striking score. Though it may not seem like it from the posters, "Signs" is ultimately very spiritual and almost uplifting; it's impossible to elaborate without ruining the movie, but those viewers who find it hard to accept that this world is all there is and that nothing just happens (and I must confess to being among that number) will find this movie very rewarding. This is a movie that hangs around.