#60: THE SIXTH SENSE (1999)

 TW: Suicide

THRILL SCALE 1-10

10

HAVE I SEEN IT BEFORE?

Yes, several times, the first time shortly after it was released on home video in March of 2000

BEST SEQUENCE

For scares it's probably the first appearance of Kyra (Mischa Barton), the little girl ghost, in Cole's (Haley Joel Osment's) tent; the ghost woman in the kitchen is also terrifying, including when she walks by the open bathroom door. And while it's not really scary, that final scene still packs a punch

BEST LINE

"I see dead people" - obviously

ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE

86%

ROTTEN TOMATOES CRITICS CONSENSUS

"M Night Shayamalan's The Sixth Sense is a twisty ghost story with all the style of a classical Hollywood picture, but all the chills of a modern horror flick."

IMDB SYNOPSIS

"Malcolm Crowe, a child psychologist, starts treating a young boy, Cole, who encounters dead people and convinces him to help them. In turn, Cole helps Malcolm reconcile with his estranged wife."

DIRECTOR

M. Night Shyamalan

MAIN CAST

Bruce Willis, Haley Joel Osment, Toni Collette, Mischa Barton, Olivia Williams, Donnie Wahlberg

THOUGHTS

• This was the first real horror movie I ever saw, and it scared the ever-loving piss out of me. I slept with the lights on for a few nights after seeing it. I would lie on my side in bed, afraid to turn over to the other side just in case there was a little girl just standing there, looking at me and vomiting. And by the way, I was born in 1986, so you do the math and decide how embarrassed I should be by all of the above
• All these years later, and even after having seen it several more times, The Sixth Sense is still a pretty terrifying movie. What really gets me is the suddenness and the unpredictability of when Cole is going to run into ghosts, even if it may be a bit of a horror movie cheat. When Cole can be walking down his own hallway, in the middle of the day, only to see a ghost appear, that's when we know that he's never truly safe
• I forgot how patient this movie is with getting to the supernatural, really scary stuff. We don't hear "I see dead people" until 50 minutes into the movie, and before that point we don't see any dead people either (with one obvious exception). There's some creepy stuff in the first half of the movie, like all the kitchen cupboards suddenly opening (reminiscent of a similar scene in Poltergeist), but the first truly scary scene is when Cole gets shoved into a closet with a ghost, whose voice we hear but who we do not see, which is some nice restraint from Shyamalan that makes the scene all the more terrifying
• After this point it's all ghosts all the time with barely any time to catch one's breath. I also feel like this is a good time to mention, I hope it should be pretty obvious at this point that I wouldn't consider myself squeamish when it comes to movies - a movie can do whatever it needs to in order to scare or shock me. However, it is also worth commending The Sixth Sense for still being one of the scariest movies I've ever seen, and with only a PG-13 rating
• Bruce Willis and Haley Joel Osment are both excellent in this, if for no other reason than the fact that they can take Shyamalan's dialogue, which can be pretty clunky and expository at times, and make it sound natural. Toni Collette is also excellent as Cole's mother (and Collette and Osment were both nominated for Best Supporting Oscars). And, even Donnie Wahlberg is pretty memorable in the small but important role as Malcolm's former student
• And so, let's talk about the man behind it all, M. Night Shyamalan himself. The Sixth Sense was an absolute sensation, and while it wasn't actually his first movie it still set a precedent for everything that would follow, usually detrimentally so. We'll be talking about some more Shyamalan movies after this one, so I won't get too deep into comparisons, but I will say that The Sixth Sense is my favourite movie of his by a long shot. At this point I'm not totally sure what second place would even be, but whatever it is it's not a close race. And, largely, this boils down to the way the twist hits in The Sixth Sense. Firstly, since this was the movie that put Shyamalan on the map and made his name synonymous with a twist ending, as the first "Shyamalan-esque" movie it had that added element of surprise. But, even more importantly, the twist ending in The Sixth Sense does not diminish any part of the movie that comes before it. It doesn't make anything less scary and it's not overly distracting - at no point is Bruce Willis's Malcolm the source of any of the movie's frightening scenes, so considering the twist ending is entirely related to Malcolm, it doesn't have any impact on how terrifying all the scary stuff is
• And finally, all cards on the table, and spoiler warning (although if ever there was a review that didn't need a spoiler warning, it's this one). Does the twist work? I say yes. In ways this is somewhat of a puzzle movie, something to watch and try to catch the director slipping. And there are definitely nits that could be picked, but at least as far as Malcolm's story goes, I basically have no complaints, largely due to Cole's statement that the ghosts don't know that they're dead and they only see what they want to see - as far as Malcolm goes, a lot can be brushed under the rug with that explanation. However....this does open up some inconsistencies in other parts of the movie. For example, when Cole sees people hanging in his school - how does that fit into the movie's ghost logic? Or, even more so, immediately after "I see dead people" when Cole sees the woman in the kitchen, she shows him her slit wrists. Surely this ghost must know she's dead, no? The same goes for Mischa Barton's Kyra, for that matter, whose unfinished business entirely revolves around the fact that she was poisoned. But, like I said, these are nitpicks and, for me, at least, they don't make the movie any less effective

Up next: As mentioned above, The Sixth Sense was certainly Shyamalan's breakthrough movie, but it was also just the beginning of a decades-long career. So, we'll be spending some more time with Shyamalan, movies selected based on a reader poll. Up next, with a decisive number of votes from the readers, Signs from 2002

READERS' CHOICE #31: ROBOCOP (1987)

THRILL SCALE 1-10

9.5

HAVE I SEEN IT BEFORE?

Yes, but only once, and within the last few years

BEST SEQUENCE

RoboCop's first night on the beat; our introduction to ED-209 is also pretty memorable

BEST LINE

"I'd buy that for a dollar"

ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE

92%

ROTTEN TOMATOES CRITICS CONSENSUS

"While over-the-top and gory, Robocop is also a surprisingly smart sci-fi flick that uses ultraviolence to disguise its satire of American culture."

IMDB SYNOPSIS

"In a dystopic and crime-ridden Detroit, a terminally wounded cop returns to the force as a powerful cyborg haunted by submerged memories."

DIRECTOR

Paul Verhoeven

MAIN CAST

Peter Weller, Ronny Cox, Kurtwood Smith, Nancy Allen, Miguel Ferrer, Daniel O'Herlihy

THOUGHTS

• Man, this is such an entertaining movie
• The violence is indeed extremely graphic, but it's also pretty absurd in both style and amount, letting us know that we shouldn't take it too seriously. Scenes like ED-209 pumping a guy full of lead in a board meeting, or a bad guy driving into a tank of toxic waste, only for his disintegrating body to then explode on a car's windshield after getting run over, in a different movie they might make us recoil in horror or disgust; in RoboCop they're so over-the-top that you can't help but laugh along with the movie. In fact, for level of violence it's not that far removed from something like Ichi the Killer, but RoboCop does more that I like with it
• The ridiculousness of the movie also leads to a lot of affection for the somewhat janky special effects. For example, I love that RoboCop's robotic motions are pretty much shown just through Peter Weller (very capably) popping and locking. I haven't seen the 2014 remake, so I could be wrong, but I would imagine that a more modern movie would lean into CGI or actual robotics in the costuming to make the lead character more believable as a machine. But then you watch this movie, and you realize - who cares if he's not always 100% believable as a robot? It really doesn't matter how convincing it is, because everyone onscreen sells it
• The same could be said about ED-209, very charmingly depicted through stop motion or just by pushing a model down some stairs (one of the funniest parts of the movie). But when people scream and flee from an attacking ED-209, we believe it completely
• As an example of a legitimately impressive and convincing special effect, I'll mention when RoboCop takes off his helmet and we see Peter Weller's face on a robotic head. Although, to balance things out, it's only fair to then mention the least convincing special effect of the movie, the hilariously elongated limbs on the Dick Jones model when he gets shot out of a window (but it's also completely unforgettable and I wouldn't change it for the world)
  
  
• The special effects team was led by Rob Bottin, whose fantastic work we've talked about before (The Thing) and we will again (Se7en)
• Clarence Boddicker and Dick Jones are unbeatable bad guy names, backed up by delightfully villainous performances by Kurtwood Smith and Ronny Cox
• It was really hard to choose a favourite line for this one, as the script is eminently quotable. Also in the running: "Can you fly, Bobby?"; "Your move, creep"; Dead or alive, you're coming with me"; and, of course, "I used to call the Old Man funny names - Iron Butt. Boner. Once, I even called him...asshole."
• Finally, so many components work together so well in this movie, but I would be remiss if I didn't mention the man who brought them all together, Paul Verhoeven. It will be his only appearance in these reviews (unless I decide to add another one on a whim), but what a great showing it is. I especially loved all his little directorial flourishes, things like the newscasts and commercials and bad TV shows that interrupt the action onscreen (the commercial for Nukem is probably my favourite), or the POV shots, like RoboCop booting up after Murphy is brought back to life. I haven't seen all of Verhoeven's movies, but I've liked everything I've seen; even Showgirls, which as a movie is completely abysmal, but as a viewing experience is sublime. Am I right to think that RoboCop is Verhoeven's best movie? Or would anyone like to make a case for another contender in his filmography?

Up next: And with that, we've finished another block of Readers' Choice movies, so it's back into the AFI list with The Sixth Sense! And after that we'll be spending a bit more time with M. Night Shyamalan. He may not have the most consistent body of work, but you can't call him a quitter. So we'll be watching a few more Shyamalan movies as well, to be decided by readers' votes