Signs

The Village dir. by

For this year’s RIP challenge Carl has suggested that as well as reading horror-ific books we might also watch some suitable films and to get the ball rolling on my RIP films I decided to rewatch M. Night Shymalan’s The Village.

I quite enjoyed it the first time around. I don’t seem to recall having been all that surprised by any of the so-called twists or reveals, but it was an enjoyable film.

Lady in the Water dir. by

This is an odd film. A very odd film.

Ever since The Sixth Sense Shyamalan has been known as the “twist guy” for his film endings; I don’t think that is a fair description. And while you can say that Unbreakable, Signs and The Village all had twists to their endings, the twists weren’t all that important. The films were stories about people, truth, and finding out who you are. The Lady in the water continues in this vein, but at the same time it is a very different type of film. As Shyamalan has said, it is a bedtime story. A fairy tale, for children. So it is, of course, going to be more simplistic and yet at the same time it is more complicated than that.

The Village dir. by

Its been two years since this came out in the cinema, and I’m finally getting to see it. Given that I’ve liked most of what Shyamalan has done, and given that Joaquin Phoenix is a star I’m a little surprised that it has taken me this long. I really enjoyed The Sixth Sense, and loved Unbreakable, but I did hate Signs.

Signs dir. by

I found this to be a very disappointing film. I had enjoyed Shyamalan’s films and had hoped for something equally as good. It wasn’t even a twist that I was looking...