SCARY, predictable, but TOO SCARY TO MATTER!!

Rating: 9/10 (3 August 2002)

I'm utterly shocked at how many bad reviews this masterpiece of horror received on this web page. I have honestly never been so scared by a movie in my life as I was by Signs. Maybe this is because I've always been very afraid of and interested in aliens, but I think a good deal of it was simply because this is a VERY scary movie. I didn't really have any expectations going into the theater, and knew next to nothing about the film, and came out afraid to go to sleep that night.
Yes, the direction of the movie is fairly predictable and the ending is flat out on the cheesy side. This still doesn't change the fact that I think it was all done very well, and it still scared me to death! How the director scared you with what you didn't see, psychologically and with shadows and the soundtrack, was just masterful. What a mood setting soundtrack.
The acting ranged from amazing (the younger Caulkin brother) to very good (Gibson). Every one of the four main characters is well developed and acted in a very convincing way.
My first instinct was to give this movie a 8. If I liked the movie so much, you might wonder why I wouldn't give it a 9 or 10? Well I saw it was some friends, and a few really didn't like it. Afterwards they bashed the ending especially, which I admit is the weak point of the movie. My conversation with them about the movie honestly convinced me that the movie was worse than I think it really was was. Then as I clicked on the number 8, I thought about how I felt before I talked to them, right as the movie ended. I thought about how the movie made me scream out loud, jump, and honestly want to leave the theater half way through because my heart felt it would burst in my chest. I thought about how the acting, direction, soundtrack, etc were all amazing. Then I thought about how when I saw the ending, I just thought "that could have been better", not "that really hurt the movie". The fact remains that this is the scariest movie I've ever seen, and it's a great movie aside from the horror as well. So in the end, I give Signs a 9/10.