18 years after his smash success The Sixth Sense, the name “M. Night Shyamalan” instantly conjures contradictory thoughts in the film community. In some cases, people get incredibly excited when they hear that he’s working on a new movie, and other times, seeing his name come up on screen during a trailer can cause the audience to burst out laughing.
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Opening in theaters this weekend is Split, the latest psychological thriller from Shyamalan. The filmmaker has written and directed films in various genres, from dramas to science fiction to fantasy to horror, but when looking at a big chunk of his career, do his strengths outweigh his flaws? With his first two films, Praying with Anger and Wide Awake, haven’t been seen by most of his fans, we’re going to focus on the films that audiences are more familiar with, which are The Sixth Sense and everything that followed.
Are you a Shyamalan fan or hate all of his films? Let us know in the comments!
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The Sixth Sense (1999)
Regardless of whether or not you claim to have seen the “twist” coming, the story of a little boy who sees dead people and can barely function as a regular kid put both Shyamalan and Haley Joel Osment on the map. The film is atmospheric and impeccably acted, and the final product resulted in six Oscar nominations for acting, directing, and even for Best Picture. Almost two decades later, the film is just as compelling as it was when it first came out.
Verdict: Thumbs Up
[H/T YouTube/Film Trailers In HD and HQ]
Unbreakable (2000)
Shyamalan teamed up once again with Bruce Willis, but rather than a world of horror, this film explored a security guard who comes to the realization that he couldn’t get sick or be hurt. The director claims that this film was the result of attempting to write a super hero film but could really only manage to master the first act in which a hero realizes their powers. The film is definitely a nontraditional look at super heroes, as it doesn’t clue the audience in to the fact that it’s a super hero movie until near the end. The film also gave us one of the more eccentric characters we’ve seen Samuel L. Jackson play, conveying the antithesis of someone “Unbreakable” and is injured quite easily.
Verdict: Thumbs Up
[H/T YouTube/TouchstoneOnDemand’s Channel]
Signs (2002)
Despite it being proven that crop circles around the world were created by pranksters, Signs explored the idea that maybe the massive symbols were actually left by beings from another world. Much like the first act of Independence Day, which featured characters trying to determine is ominous occurrences were attempts at communication or warning signs for the human race, this film gave an emotional look at a family potentially coming to terms with their own mortality, their spirituality, and fear of the unknown. With this being the third film in a row to feature a shocking reveal late in the story, many audiences realized the director was falling into a pattern with his films, although Signs is far from being the first movie to reveal the weakness of its antagonists late in the story and the film is still a pretty creepy exploration of tension and dread.
Verdict: Thumbs Up
[H/T YouTube/klappozita]
The Village (2004)
Promotional materials made The Village look like another terrifying film from a burgeoning horror master, however, the film is actually a love story that happens to have some scary supernatural elements at the outskirts. An isolated community flirts with danger as it is surrounded by terrifying creatures on all sides, preventing them from ever contacting other communities. Halfway through the film, it is revealed that the creatures are just fictional and are part of a scheme from the elders in the community to keep the younger community members from leaving. There’s another twist at the end of the film that caused some audiences to discredit everything that happened in the movie at that point, and although the twist at the end isn’t totally necessary, the film is still an eerie love story set within a bizarre community.
Verdict: Thumbs Up
[H/T YouTube/TouchstoneOnDemand]
Lady in the Water (2006)
Continuing to expand his filmography outside the world of horror, Lady in the Water was instead a dark fairy tale, based on a story Shyamalan told his kids. Essentially about a woman who appears from a community pool and speaks of mystical creatures out to get her, a reluctant handyman and the residents of the apartment complex are the only ones who can help her. The film is ambitious, but tonally it’s all over the place, from incredibly dramatic to terrifying to laughably silly. Unfortunately, the combination of these tones just heighten how jarringly different each scene is from the next and the result is just a big mess. There are some fantastic sequences throughout, but ultimately those sequences don’t create a unified film.
Verdict: Thumbs Down
[H/T YouTube/The Fantasy Central]
The Happening (2008)
Wanting to get back to his roots (pun intended) of horror, The Happening explored a bizarre series of events that feature people around the world killing themselves for seemingly no reason. A scientist, played by Mark Wahlberg, learns that trees are no longer processing the atmosphere in a way that it leaves a chemical in the air that causes people to harm themselves. The somewhat ridiculous reveal comes less than halfway into the movie, and considering his track record, most viewers expected a better justification by the end of the film, and it just never happened. Despite the concept being pretty ridiculous and not worth the trouble of a whole movie, the sequences of people killing themselves are chilling, proving Shyamalan knows how to shoot a terrifying scene.
Verdict: Thumbs Down
[H/T YouTube/20th Century Fox]
The Last Airbender (2010)
The Last Airbender was a highly anticipated adaptation of the popular animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender, that was poised to become a massive franchise. Instead, virtually everyone who saw it hated it and it currently sits at a 6% on Rotten Tomatoes. Nothing about this film really works and basically put a nail in the coffin of the hopes the animated series getting the theatrical adaptation it deserves. This also marked two duds in a row for Shyamalan, but wouldn’t be his last.
Verdict: Thumbs Down
[H/T YouTube/hollywoodstreams]
After Earth (2013)
Despite the failure of The Last Airbender, Shyamalan got another opportunity for a big-budget epic with After Earth, this time bringing in Will and Jaden Smith to star as a stranded father and son team in a futuristic world. This was another huge flop for everybody involved, chalked up to just being flat out boring and felt mostly like an excuse for Will to work with his son in a movie. With it having been nearly ten years since his last good movie, things weren’t looking good for Shyamalan’s future.
Verdict: Thumbs Down
[H/T YouTube/Movieclips Trailers]
The Visit (2015)
Following two big-budget flops, Shyamalan returned to his horror roots with this small-budgeted POV horror film about two kids who stay with their grandparents who experience some creepy encounters. The film had some terrifying sequences, juxtaposed by some incredibly funny gags, leading towards a surprise reveal. Considering The Visit was a horror movie, a surprising reveal late in the story didn’t feel like a cheap ploy to recreate some of his successes with misleading the audiences, but it was an earned reveal that was necessary for the story. The film wasn’t as strong as some of his earlier outings, but there were enough strengths in it to earn him back some credibility.
Verdict: Thumbs Up
[H/T YouTube/Movieclips Coming Soon]
Final Verdict
When looking at Shyamalan’s films from that helped establish him as a filmmaker, we’re left with five that are good and four that are not so good. One of the biggest consistents with all of his movies is that they are incredibly well-directed and composed, showing his skills of pacing and tension, while also composing each shot in a way that draws your eye exactly where he wants it to go so he can then startle you with something coming from a different direction.
Another strength of the filmmaker is that his actors clearly believe in him and he has a large fanbase in Hollywood, bringing in veritable superstars like Bruce Willis, Mel Gibson, Joaquin Phoenix, and Will Smith. All of these actors are the best at what they do, so even with subpar dialogue, they can make it work.
Ultimately, Shyamalan’s faults come from his writing. He’s ambitious, yes, but it feels like a case of the Emperor’s New Clothes, with no one wanting to tell him that his concepts might not work no matter what talent he draws in. That’s not to say he’s incapable of writing good material, but more that had someone attempted to restrain him a bit with Lady in the Water and The Happening, he might have limited himself to two duds instead of four.
Verdict: M. Night Shyamalan as an incredibly talented director, but his writing ideas are oftentimes too ambitious, so were he to work with the right screenwriter, he’d be unstoppable.
