Watch the movie OBJECTIVELY and you may be shocked.

Rating: 10/10 (15 November 2004)

Make aside the Hollywood tones that have hurt the genre in the past, "The Sixth Sense" deserves a chance. The movie is not overrated, it has been viewed incorrectly. Most people watch it only for the hype it created but if you watch it as a HORROR movie you will get the director's message.
ACTING. A surprisingly good performance by Bruce Willis. He's performance is very solid that you actually believe him. His contribution to the genre won't be forgotten, believe me. Hailey Joel Osment steals the show and gives probably the second best performance by a child actor in a horror movie (Linda Blair is still the best). The boy can make the audience feel his fears. Toni Collete also gives a touching performance. Solid performances this time.
DIRECTION. M. Night Shyamalan's direction is stylish, classy, and creepy. The man knew how to create a scary atmosphere with dark settings and situations when not expected. Creative shots and camera angles support the good direction. The correct use of lightning and darkness is wonderful. This is a "ghostly" direction. Great job.
F/X, SCORE, CINEMATOGRAPHY. -The f/x are pretty good. The dead people look scary. Shyamalan perfectly knew how a big part of the audience visualizes dead people. -Great score. -The cinematography is very Hollywood. It's perfect but very stylish for a horror movie. The "Hollywood" look doesn't helps the "Sixth Sense" in being 100% scary. Still it's pretty good.
*SPOILERS* "The Sixth Sense" has made great contributions to the genre. Positive and negative contributions. First, it brought back the "ghost" sub-genre and in the best way possible. The story is solid and very well crafted. The events are connected perfectly and that's the main reason that the ending is "that" shocking.
Many people say that this movie isn't scary, that the audience can guess the ending at the first half of the movie, that the plot twists do not impress, blah, blah. You know there's a lot of people like that...I bet that 99% of these people, if they watched the movie OBJECTIVELY; were actually shocked by the movie's ending and goings. The so called experts in the genre (most of them are obsessed with the 70's horror movies) can't accept the movie's originality and success. I'm not a big fan of these kind of movies but I accept it's an original horror movie with a great ending. The bad thing about the movie is that it served as model for many horror movies that try to create a shocking ending but fail miserably and disturb the audience. The ending in this movie is carefully planned, it connects all the situations perfectly with the scare factor. Unlike other movies that abruptly come up with a "shocking" ending that angers the audience (a la "The Village").
The truth is that the movie is very original and offers something that no other horror movie had before (or at least it wasn't very popular and in the reach of the fans of the genre). The movie is not only about horror or scares; there's drama (a mother worried about her son), a message of respect to the phenomenons that science can't explain, and a message of life (the whole Bruce Willis situation with his wife). The movie is by no means scarier than the brilliant "Exorcist" but it's a movie that commands the new generation of horror movies. It's the reference to the late 90's horror and that's something that will forever mark the genre. It was about time for evolution.
8.5/10 One of the best horror movies that catches the attention of the viewer since minute 1. Not many big budget horror movies can accomplish something like that. And it's harder to find them in this new century that seems to be making a a lot of damage to the genre.