After his critical and box-office breakthrough with 1999's "The Sixth Sense", writer/director/producer M. Night Shyamalan was hard pressed to find the same sort of success with his second film.
Unfortunately, sophomore slump hit hard with "Unbreakable", which was a modest success but failed to capture any of the same sort of praise as "Sense."
But after a two-year break, Shyamalan has rediscovered his mastery of the paranormal thriller with this summer's release of "Signs."
Instead of Bruce Willis, who starred in Shyamalan's first two films, "Signs" features another megastar, Mel Gibson, who plays Graham Ness, a former reverend who has abandoned his faith after the accidental death of his wife in a terrible car accident.
Ness attempts to return normalcy for his son Morgan (Rory Culkin) and daughter Bo (Abigail Breslin) on their Bucks County, PA farm just outside of Philadelphia, the setting of Shyamalan's first two films and the director's hometown.
Graham's brother, Merrill (Joaquin Phoenix), has moved back with the family after a failed baseball career to help raise the two children and help his brother on the farm.
Unfortunately, Graham's need for closure disappears when strange things start popping up all over the farm in the form of a crop circle, marked in a peculiar pattern in Graham's cornfield.
At first, Graham tries to dismiss it as reckless youths with ropes and boards, but when Graham and Merrill spot a strange figure lurking around the farm and fields, they come to realize that these markings may be the sign of something more ominous.
As Graham tries to shield public scrutiny of potential extraterrestrial frenzy while at the same time questioning his already razor-thin faith, the family discovers that similar incidents are occurring all over the world, where strange glowing discs are spotted in the night sky and more circles are spotted all over the world.
But as the rest of the world struggles to understand the meaning behind this apparent invasion, paranoia seeps into his house when his children begin to question their peculiar circumstance. Graham must balance his despair of faith with the importance of protecting his family against the impending terror.
"Signs" reestablishes Shyamalan as a master of the paranormal; all of his trademarks are here, including frightening camerawork, minimalist yet effective acting, and the occasional witty remark to ease the tension.But with Signs, Shyamalan finds a new way to enclose audiences into his characters' lives. By insulating the Graham family in such an isolated position amongst great odds, Shyamalan invites the audience to struggle along with the Grahams against an ever-present yet unseen evil.
We also see how each character responds to this apparent invasion differently, at first in humorous ways.
Merrill pays a visit to the Army recruiting station, while Graham is forced to listen to the paranoiac worries around him, although he stresses the fact that he has abandoned the church.
And the kids attempt to teach their exasperated father about extraterrestrial invasions.
But as the invasion strikes closer and closer to home, Shyamalan stresses how this fractured family must cast aside their personal demons and become united.
The film is bolstered by strong performances from Gibson, who plays the part of the conflicted father exceptionally well, and Phoenix, who as always showcases his ability to play virtually any role.
Shyamalan also shows his keen ability to extract brilliant performances from his child actors, as Hayley Joel Osment famously exhibited in "Sixth Sense."
As Gibson's two children living in the consequences of their mother's death and this unexpected invasion, both Culkin and especially Breslin are exceptional.
But inevitably, it is Shyamalan's show, as he directed, wrote, produced, and even acted in his third outing. His script, which faltered a bit in "Unbreakable", is quite solid; most the characters are very believable, and ambient additions such as barking dogs and rustling fields create an eerie environment.
Shyamalan does falter a bit with the conclusiveness of the ending, but the critical 20 minutes leading up to the climax arguably comprise the most terrifying scenes of the summer movie season.
Reunited with "Sixth Sense" cinematographer Tak Fujimoto, Shyamalan sends the audience to the edge-of-their-seats, utilizing old-fashioned camera techniques to terrify viewers.
While "Sixth Sense" dealt with primarily psychological terror concluding in its famous ending, "Signs" sends the audience head-on into the unknown with an almost unbearably slow yet tense pace.
In a relatively weak summer movie season filled with poor sci-fi outings like "Eight Legged Freaks" and even "Men in Black II", Signs chooses not to ridicule alien invasion but play our fascination with it right back at us in the form of terror.
Unfortunately, many of our fears have come as a result of Sept. 11, with an unexpected real-life terrorist attack.
Like David Fincher's "Panic Room", "Signs" does not treat its subject matter lightly, but overall, it leaves a mark on its viewers in a different way than "The Sixth Sense" did, as the viewers themselves are forced to reevaluate their faith after being jolted with the paranormal.
Shyamalan's work with "Signs" proves that his success was not fleeting, but his filmmaking is pleasantly here to stay.
