The scariest PG-13 ghost story I've ever seen.

Rating: 10/10 (11 November 2019)

I was 32 years old when this movie was released in theaters and I was already a hardened veteran of horror movies. I've seen pretty much every decent supernatural horror movie at that time. But when I saw this one, I was both embarrassed and genuinely impressed at just how scared I was after. In fact, I was actually glad I was that affected. I've been chasing that dragon ever since. I lived in a really cool creepy Gothic Victorian house at the time, and for a short time after seeing that film, I slept with my lights on. All the scenes where Cole saw the "dead people" were masterfully filmed to truly frighten. The lighting, timing and that ever present feeling of visceral dread, acted to perfection by Haley Joel Osment. It had a certain Kubrickian quality to the cinematography with the slow panning wide angle shots. In my opinion, this movie is M. Night Shyamalan's singular masterpiece. It's the perfect ghost story with a twist.