July 31, 2024
Fred Duval/SOPA Images/Sipa USA
Philly-area writer and director M. Night Shyamalan has made memorable thriller and horror films about the supernatural, and PhillyVoice is sharing their favorite memories of watching his work.
After spooking and shocking audiences with his Oscar-nominated film "The Sixth Sense," M. Night Shyamalan became a household name — and not just for his signature twists.
Whether it's Haley Joel Osment seeing dead people, Joaquin Phoenix swinging away at aliens or Mark Wahlberg running away from the wind, Shyamalan has created cinematic moments that are scary, thought-provoking, triumphant and sometimes unintentionally hilarious.
From the critically acclaimed peaks of "Unbreakable" and "Signs" to the doldrums of "Devil" and "After Earth," there's no doubt that Shyamalan is the most prolific Philly-area filmmaker working today, having shot or set many of his movies in the city and its surrounding counties.
With the upcoming release of "Trap" on Friday, Aug. 2, PhillyVoice's writers dug into their memories to share their experiences watching Shyamalan's stories of the supernatural.
Spoilers are included below.
Don't make fun of me, but I have only watched one Shyamalan movie in its entirety — I'm a scaredy cat! — and even that was not by my choice. I was taking an AP psychology class my senior year of high school, and my teacher showed us a variety of psychological thrillers designed to demonstrate topics we had learned throughout the year (and perhaps partly to kill time as a bunch of overachieving teenagers awaited graduation).
Among the films we watched was the 1999 classic "The Sixth Sense." It was my first time watching the movie, and somehow in my 17 years of life to that point, I had never seen or heard any spoilers about the film's shocking twist.
While I'm not sure watching "The Sixth Sense" particularly helped me ace my AP exam, I surely will never forget being completely flabbergasted by the moment when we finally find out that Bruce Willis' character is actually one of the "dead people" that the young boy (Haley Joel Osment) sees. If Shyamalan's other films produce this type of stunning finale, then maybe I need to find some courage and tune in to his other work.
I was no professional film critic in my high school years, but even then, I knew that "The Last Airbender" was a stinker. As a massive fan of the animated show "Avatar: The Last Airbender," Shyamalan's 2010 live-action adaptation invited more curiosity than excitement, considering his recent output of "Lady in the Water" and "The Happening" was shaky at best.
Nothing prepared me for the clown show that I witnessed in the theater. Even if I could ignore the blatant white-washed casting, the entire movie was a feature-length tutorial on how to not write and direct a film. Compressing a 20-episode season of television into 100 minutes was a futile effort in the first place, but "The Last Airbender" lacked the heart and humor of the show, and the action scenes lacked the kinetic energy of the animation.
Every actor looked clueless while spouting the most inane and generic dialogue committed to the medium, and the multi-layered characters of the show became comedic caricatures with little to no passion. The most infamous moment was when a group of extras performed an overchoreographed dance, only to move a single rock. My younger sister and I erupted into laughter in the theater, attracting the attention of confused audience members.
Some scenes of "The Last Airbender," despite its fantastical setting, were shot in Reading, and action sequences were filmed in a Philadelphia sound stage — something I learned when a local sword-fighting choreographer who worked on the movie visited my high school theater class to give a stage fencing lesson. But to the "Avatar: The Last Airbender" fans around the world, please accept Philly's apology for this misguided travesty.
My biggest (though probably not best) Shyamalan memory is watching "Split" at my boyfriend's parents' house a few years ago. I had come over that night around dinnertime and spontaneously decided to stay and watch the movie, though I hadn't seen "Unbreakable" and had no clue about the plot.
I certainly had planned on returning home afterward, but two hours of psychological terror later, I ended up too scared to sleep alone and spent the night — safe from any kidnappers that might want to hold me hostage under the Philadelphia Zoo.
Since his string of breakout movies in the late 1990s, Shyamalan has filled out his oeuvre with a pretty hit-or-miss track record. His films are always a big draw, good or bad, and they’re fun to watch in terms of critiquing the execution if nothing else.
His best movie in the last 10 years has to be 2015's “The Visit,” a frightening portrayal of two escaped dementia patients who kidnap a pair of siblings on a Pennsylvania farm.
Shyamalan funded “The Visit” by borrowing $5 million against his home, making it his lowest-budget film. And it went on to draw $98.5 million at the box office. “The Visit” worked because Shyamalan was unburdened by swinging for the fences with the luxury of a gigantic budget. He got back to his strength of layering foreboding, creepy behavior into mundane — and often comical — plot development.
“The Visit” earns its unraveling terror scene by scene. The movie’s found-footage style has the two children protagonists filming a camcorder documentary about their first time meeting their grandparents, but they soon discover the kooky people taking care of them might not be who they say they are. It’s a rewarding setup.
Any time Shyamalan misses the mark with a movie these days, I take comfort in knowing he’s entirely capable of going back to basics. When the concepts behind his movies get too big in order to garner mass appeal, the overall point is sometimes telegraphed to the detriment of his storytelling ability. I hope he doesn’t have to bomb to reproduce that magic, but there’s at least reason to believe some of his best work may still be ahead of him.
When my now-husband and I squeezed into a packed showing of "Split" in 2016, I thought we were there to watch James McAvoy do a bunch of creepy voices. And for a while, we were! I’ve been following the Scottish actor ever since he dropped a potent one-two punch of "Atonement" and "Becoming Jane" on me in high school, so seeing him in a non-romantic lead wasn’t my preferred speed, but I was having a good time.
Only then there was that final scene in the Silk City diner, where Bruce Willis made a surprise reveal as David Dunn, the hero of Shyamalan’s 2000 thriller "Unbreakable." People — including my husband — started hollering, cheering and standing in the aisles. The only problem was I had never seen "Unbreakable," and thought the people around me were having a psychotic break. (Not unlike McAvoy’s!) Once we got out of the theater, my husband filled me in and I did eventually watch "Unbreakable." But it was a confusing and unnerving few minutes, which I guess is true to the spirit of Shyamalan’s work.
My other memorable Shyamalan experience was watching "Old" on my birthday. It wasn’t as funny as I thought it’d be.
