Seeing No Evil in "Signs"

(August 2, 2002) In his new film Signs, 32-year-old Indian-born writer-director M. Night Shyamalan proves that his youth is no impediment to a meaningful understanding of family, grief, and terror. He also proves that it's possible to cross genre lines successfully within a film--even between genres as far apart as drama and horror.

Moment of discovery in "Signs" ©Touchstone Pictures

As the film begins, there is sweepingly melodramatic Hitchcockian music over the opening titles. I began to be concerned, because I had come to see Signs in the hopes that Shyamalan would live up to his hype and create something really new, instead of remaking some dusty old horror flick. However, it seems that Shyamalan's choice of music for the opening titles was just a nod in Hitchcock's direction. Signs may not be entirely innovative, but neither is it too noticeably derivative. Since most of the movies in theaters this summer are entirely derivative--films based on old TV shows or cartoons; sequels; sequels to sequels; prequels--Signs is a good choice for the filmgoer who wants something new. But be warned: this is definitely not a film for young children, or probably anyone with a heart condition.

Joaquin Phoenix

Shyamalan (sha-ma-lon) takes us on two different journeys in Signs. One is a trip deeper and deeper into horror: we start at mildly creepy, progress past deeply strange, and eventually exist within the realm of totally surreal. The other expedition we embark upon is an emotional one. We witness the way a family both crumbles and pulls together following a tragedy, and the way one man's loss of faith affects those around him. Shyamalan's innovation is to combine these two journeys into one film. The real question is this: can the emotional story sustain bouts of shock and terror? And can the horror story remain scary through highly sentimental tangential moments?

Certainly the horror story is able to thrive because it easily dominates most of the film. Shyamalan masterfully increases the suspense throughout the opening third of the film by refusing to let either his main character (an ex-minister and father of two named Graham Hess, played by Mel Gibson) or his audience decide whether or not the strangeness of what is happening is the result of something supernatural/extraterrestrial or a prank or hoax created by clever (albeit twisted) human beings.

Another film that kept audiences in suspense in the same manner was 1999's The Blair Witch Project, directed by Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez. Blair Witch made us pray fervently that the noises outside of the tent were man-made, the cruel joke of some backwoods yokels who can't get cable out where they live. But, while we prayed, we dreaded and suspected that the cause of those nocturnal sounds was in fact supernatural--that they were being made by the Blair Witch, or whatever dark power she represented. In the same way, Signs withholds the moment in which we know for sure whether the explanation for the strangeness--in the case of Signs, the crop circles which appear overnight in fields all over the world--is quotidian (kids playing a prank) or something more menacing.

Another way in which Signs is similar to Blair Witch is that Shyamalan seems to understand what the directors of Blair Witch understood: the human imagination can provide images and suppositions a thousand times more frightening than anything it is possible to produce with special effects. For that reason, we never actually see the monster/witch/Evil Resonance in Blair Witch. Shyamalan uses a similar tactic in Signs, keeping the special effects to a bare minimum, and constantly withholding what would both terrify us and ease us: a real look at what is making all those creepy noises. Instead, our imaginations provide us with increasingly chilling possibilities. The danger in this, of course, is that the actual monster--if there is one and if we ever get to see it--is not nearly so scary as what we had supposed, and we're left feeling cheated.

Viewers will undoubtedly also want to see connections between Signs and 1977's Close Encounters of the Third Kind. However, I'd note that Spielberg's film is more about the wonder of discovery and contact than it is a suspenseful thriller. It is chiefly a science fiction film with elements of horror and even political suspense. Signs doesn't spend any time wondering if governments are trying to keep secrets from us.

In terms of a visual aesthetic, there is nothing especially incredible about what cinematographer Tak Fujimoto (The Silence of the Lambs, The Sixth Sense) does. In general, the interior locations are dark, a little grimy, and quite subdued. So much of the film takes place in the kitchen, living room, and bedrooms of the Hess home that the locations begin to feel very familiar. The house itself develops a sort of a personality within the story. By the final quarter of the film, we begin to feel a sense of confinement and claustrophobia, but we also empathize with Graham Hess's desire to defend his home: it has come to be imbued with emotional meaning for us, too.

In fact, the home is so important in Signs that what is happening in the rest of the world is disclosed to us only in thirty-second intervals as we glimpse the TV or hear the radio in the Hess house. Graham Hess attempts to see, hear, and speak no evil by turning off the TV and turning off the radio, as if he can shut out the danger by eschewing knowledge of it. However, Shyamalan proves that choosing ignorance is no guarantee of safety: even the Hess home, so perfectly ordinary, so peaceful and isolated, can be invaded by fear, and Graham Hess will have to face it for the sake of his family.

Culkin, Phoenix, Breslin

In terms of acting, Mel Gibson is quite good, but Joaquin Phoenix (who plays Graham's brother) and Abigail Breslin (as Graham's 5-year-old daughter) are equally good, if not better. Phoenix's sincerity is simply effortless and entirely believable. Breslin is unselfconscious and adorable, both when she is being solemn and not. Rory Culkin turns in the only problematic performance--he delivers his lines stiltedly, his only manner of portraying emotion of any sort is an open-mouthed gawk, and he just reminds me too much of his older brother, of Home Alone fame. The only other performance truly deserving of notice is that turned in by Cherry Jones, playing a police officer, who is both a link to the night Graham's wife died, and a bit of comic relief.

Finally, during some of the most suspenseful moments in the film, Shyamalan directs the narrative inward, into Graham's memories of the death of his wife, and into his heart. Whether we want to or not, we are going to contemplate the meaning of loss, the essence of family, and the importance of faith before the film is over. And Shyamalan manages to make us do it without losing the tempo of the story and without letting us relax from our fear-induced high. There is a definite parallel between the way Graham tries to shut out what is happening in the rest of the world by turning off the TV, and the way Graham, as a former clergyman, has lost his faith because of the seemingly senseless manner in which his wife died. Shymalan seems to be saying that we can only shut out forces such as danger, fate and grief for so long before they intervene in our lives again, breaking down and through any barriers we may have built.

This film is definitely worth going to see. Certainly, I'd advise you to see Signs before wasting your money on Scooby Doo, Attack of the Clones, or any other spin-off, sequel, or prequel. There's definitely a drought this summer.

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Eve Eisenberg grew up in Larchmont and now lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she has worked in documentary film.

Photos © Touchstone Pictures

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