A Back-to-Basics Spook Film That Proves You CAN Scare Without Computers...

Rating: 9/10 (11 August 1999)

THE SIXTH SENSE is a refreshing and absorbing ghost story that is much more than meets the eye. It is great to see a major Hollywood release go back to old school fright methods. Do not expect to see thrill-a-minute, falsely produced chills. This is a truly original piece of atmospheric filmmaking that earns the viewer's responses, which include frequent oohs and aahs and an occasional scream.
Writer-Director M. Night Shyamalan, a Philly native, presents a plodding build-up to one of the best payoffs I have seen in a thriller in the past few years. Seeing the film, I knew the young boy (played incredibly by Haley Joel Osment) has a "gift" and sees certain people walking around no one else can see. Shyamalan seems to have taken a page out of Spielberg's JAWS, where the shark is never fully seen until crucial climactic scenes, and applied it to the boy's problem. It is most definitely a problem if you are interacting with people who supposedly no longer walk the earth. You may be unsure as to what he really is seeing until the great frights and charms of the picture hit you. You know when Shyamalan means for us to get it and become involved.
Bruce Willis is so reserved it is scary in itself and he plays off the boy very effectively. SIXTH SENSE takes place on some other plane of existence it seems. That is how I felt. Sometimes you wonder whether people are seeing the main characters, who are all, in varying ways, mixed up in this whirlwind of terrifying sights and dimensions. It is not manipulative and the scares do not need manufacturing. We are led through them as a good script should put an audience through.
Toni Collette has picked up a good South Philadelphia accent and is simply flabbergasted as to what the hell is going on with her seemingly gifted, yet sick, young son. Osment as "Cole", the boy star of the film outshines even Willis and shows he is capable of playing a character deeper than Forrest Gump Jr. (yep, that's him). There is a lot of religious reference to afterlife which is fitting and the so-called "twist" is indeed a twist to remember.
All involved in this surprising production should be proud of the fact that you can still keep an audience in traction with moody story-telling and visuals and NO computer-generated effects. Compare this to the current release THE HAUNTING and realize how much better these bare bones are.
Rating ***1/2