This movie is not a thriller

Rating: 10/10 (16 December 2005)

"The #1 Thriller Of All Time"Yeah, Right!
(spoilers)
"The #1 Thriller of all time!" is how the movie, The Sixth Sense, is advertised. But is "thriller" the best way to describe this story? Certainly there are many shocking, startling scenes. However, the story seems to be more of a psychological journey, colored with melancholy and sadness than most thrillers. Granted, The Sixth Sense has many scenes that employ "scary graphics". But these graphics look like they were designed by a seven-year-old. And does the movie fit within the thriller genre when it does not have chase scenes? The closest scene would be Malcolm walking after Cole when he had missed an appointment! Not exactly startling or thrilling.
Although we have had this movie for a couple of years, I had not watched it until October 29, 2005 because my little brother kept telling me how terrifying it was. I found it intriguing, but was surprised that it did not frighten me more. I even watched it again on Sunday the 30th so that I could go through and look for slip-ups on the whole "Malcolm is a Ghost" idea.
The over-riding idea within this movie of Malcolm not knowing he is a ghost carried a solid emotional punch. I found myself afraid that Malcolm's wife, Anna, was cheating on him and no longer loved him. The director, M. Night Shymalyan, did an excellent job of masking what the truth was and because of this, when it all became clear at the end, it was even more tragic. Throughout the movie Malcolm was under the impression that his wife was leaving him, but in fact he was the one to have left her! He had displayed all of the symptoms of a ghost throughout the movie, but because he had been presented as a living therapist, him being a ghost was not evident. The clues were not something that the viewer would focus on until the end of the movie when Malcolm remembers what had happened the night that he was shot. I love the scene where he realizes that it was never his wife's fault that she was not talking to him, but that she was in fact still very devoted to him. She repeatedly watched the video of their wedding, and went back to the restaurant he had proposed to her in. It is a powerful scene when Malcolm comes to understand that the loneliness that he feels is about a hundred times worse for Anna because she cannot see, hear, or smell his presence any more. She just gets cold when he is angry.
The graphics in this movie were simplistic and unimpressive. Scary scenes were often blurred and bloody wounds were lavishly covered in fake blood. For instance when Malcolm is shot, the camera zooms in on a clean bullet hole through the his shirt and then a growing blood stain on his back - not exactly high tech. It was evident that a hole punch was used for the shirt, with an extreme close-up to make it look bigger than it actually was, and then fake blood from a pump was used to make it look like progressive bleeding. In the scene where Vincent kills himself, they simply move him out of the range of the camera! All that is heard is a gunshot and icky, squishy sounds. And then there is the makeup used for each of the ghosts to show bruises and wounds that looked fake. When the back of the young boys head was blown off it looked like strawberry jelly slathered in his hair. And when the little girl ghost was throwing up it looked like oatmeal with yellow food coloring in it. The graphics seemed absurd and predictable to me and therefore, not very scary.
Unlike most thrillers, this movie carries sweet over-tones. The child, Cole, who has the sixth sense, is successful at maintaining his innocence no matter how horrific the ghost scenes are. And when Cole finally tells his mother his big secret, that he sees dead people, it does not make her look at him any differently. She loves him just the same as she always has.
Although I believe that the genre this movie was placed in was ill suited, it is still on my small list of favorite movies. It contains messages of love and the need to understand others within the context of their lives. Because of this, I will watch it over and over.