By: debbie lynn elias
With his latest masterpiece, “Signs”, M. Night Shyamalan has firmly ensconced himself as the king of the psychological thriller Paying homage to the original master of the genre, not only does Shyamalan play the audience like a piano as he plays with our minds through a deftly crafted script, minimal amount of but intriguing characters and toe curling fear, keeping us at arms length and on the edge of our seats, he also goes ten steps beyond Hitchcock, leaving much of the gore behind and, as we saw in “The Sixth Sense” and “Unbreakable”, ultimately giving us hope in a seemingly hopeless world.
Mel Gibson stars as Graham Hess, a widowed, former minister and the penultimate Quaker-like farmer living in the generally quiet (and sometimes strange) area of Bucks County, Pennsylvania. He also has a great affectation for corn, covering almost every square inch of his property with the crop. Standing some 7 to 9 feet tall, the crop creates an creepiness in its own right – even were it not an integral part of Shyamalan’s signs. Having turned his back on the church and God after the death of his wife, Hess is isolated on his farm with his son Morgan, daughter Bo and his brother Merrill. In typical rural Quaker-like fashion (although it seems Hess is Episcopalian), the family’s communication with the outside world is minimal and most contact is only through television. But, God – and Shyamalan – work in mysterious ways and at times it seems they will do anything to get your attention. Animals become deranged and crazed. Bizarre radio transmissions are heard over the baby monitor. Half-full water glasses are left throughout the house. Children believe that aluminum foil hats will save them from alien brain waves. Butcher knives become intriguing and are used as mirrors. The simplest forms of daily life are expertly used with subtle nuance to create the plot and establish the ever-increasing tension and suspense. Ultimately, crop circles begin to appear on the Hess property, mistakenly leading Graham to believe they were done by prankish teens with too much time on their hands, but then learning the source of the signs to come from honest to gosh aliens, hovering over the Earth. Seems the aliens are using the crop circles – which have turned up all over the world – as navigational guides. (Okay – explain this – aliens can travel through galaxies but can’t read a map or compass? Obviously we are dealing with the males of the species.)
As many may recall, crop circles were seen all over the world back in the 1970’s, leading most to believe that supernatural forces were at work and “the end was near.” Fortunately, in 1991, the perpetrators of the hoax came forward, acknowledging their deception and explaining how they pulled off such a coup. Of course, all unexplained – and explained – supernatural phenomena takes on a life of its own as the years go by, capitalizing on the public’s poor memory skills and need for tabloidesque tales, and crop circles are no different, giving Shyamalan the opening in which to creep into our psyche, playing on our shortcomings and masterfully manipulative our suspenseful cravings.
Once again injecting the fingernails-digging-in-the-leg/cover-your-eyes-I-can’t-look suspense factor at which he excels, Shyamalan soon has the alien beings invading the Hess property – hiding in the corn fields, climbing on the roof, playing peeping Tom with the bedroom windows, etc. Intensifying the suspense, television is used as a means to report the events and occurrences around the globe, with in-depth “news coverage” complete with shadowy alien images and panicked and fearful news anchors, all shown before a cowering and timid Hess family.
Technically enthralling, Shyamalan is not only the master of filming scenes where the action is off camera and thus leaving the visuals to our imaginations, but also shoots with long continuous takes, thereby building tension in the actors and their performances, as the camera stays steady and intensifies the work.
In what will undoubtedly garner him an Oscar nomination, Gibson gives a riveting, yet calculatedly modulated performance as Graham Hess with a maturity rarely seen in his previous works. After his stellar showing in “We Were Soldiers” and now with “Signs”, there is no question that Gibson is one of the finest actors in the history of film. Joaquin Phoenix, once only considered a shadow of his now deceased brother River, has truly come into his own with his portrayal of the quirky, depressed former baseball player, Merrill, and has a talent for blending the dramatic with the absurd, convincingly wearing his heart on his sleeve without overkill. And as with “The Sixth Sense”, Shyamalan evokes brilliantly touching performances with his child stars, Rory Culkin (younger brother to Macaulay) and Abigale Breslin as the Hess children.
An emotional, yet old-fashioned scary movie punctuated with terror and psychological suspense, “Signs” will have you holding your breath, biting your nails and sitting on the edge of your seat – even long after the film has ended.
