Signs (2002) | The Fact taht I didn't watch this at a formative age is a travesty.

 I first referenced this movie in my review of Our Strange Skies, a podcast about UFOs. I had heard of it vaguely knew it was a beloved cult horror film but had never really had much interest in watching it. From what I knew it had a scary scene at a birthday party and it was the makeup of Scary Movie 3. The fact that it was a Shyamalan film escaped my notice.

For most of my adult life people have been shitting on M. Night Shyamalan. If there not making tired and cliche jokes about his 'shitty twists', there usually bagging on some movie that failed to meet there expectation. Usually something he did in the early 2000s. For me if you put a gun to my head and asked me to remember something about him I would remember like the colorism discourse around his Avatar movie or the way that he demonizes a lot of mental illnesses in his modern films. I want to be clear here that Shyamalan isn't universally considered a bad director. It's merely that the highs of his career are very high and his lows are treated very low. Its very madonna whore complex right.

Now as an adult I remember him having this complicated relationship to the public because I grew up during his flop era were he made The Happening and The Village, movies people hate for some reason and I don't remember the 90s but thats not how contemporary audiences approuched this. It can't be understated how much people loved the Sixth Sense it was a movie that instantly became pop culture, something that was constantly referenced and oh also yearh he one two Oscars for his debut film. So a lot of critics were waiting with bated breath for what he would do next. 

That movie was unbreakable. I haven't seen it it seems well enough received and its probably a good thing it came out before this because when your first film is the sixth sense there going to be judging things a lot more harshly. This can stand up to scutiny. 

Its so hard not to see the influences in the work. Its very 70s spielburg in a big way. Its a small family against a big world, its a long procedial amount of time and it works so well its the type of movie thta has a long runtime and deserves every single minute of it. 

Have you ever read 'the bird's. Not the Hitchcock film but the short story that its loosly based off of. In it the protaganist Nat Hocken, spends the first half of the story preparing for war as flocks of birds loom over head the second half of the story is his house under siege. The literal waves of attack from the birds, the sandbagging of their corpse. The fire they have constantly going so that the avians don't sneak in. Its a war of attriction. The story ends with the birds breaking into the second story as Hocken begins to ration the days before there deaths. Until just as suddenly the birds arrive they leave. 

This is for all intents and purposes. Signs. at least in part. The siege, the mysterious yet violent nature of the antagonists, the capriciousness of the threat. Theres more to it in the story. Its like all good alien yarns is about the terror and wonder of things bigger then ourselves. The mindshattering concept that there is more. something else that we are yet to comprehend. Signs is if anything humanity dealing with that concept. Watching in real time as everything they now is changed, thrown away. 

I love the cast in this. Joaquin Phoenix in his youth is just a whole 'nother speciman of man and ummm quite the yum-yum.  Abigail Breslin and Rory Culkin are postively delightful. Children actors always have a tough row to how and the fact that they can pull off this level of innocense and winsomeness without coming off as grating and cheesy is a testament in and of itself. I fell like I'm living mel gibson out of this and he's fine. Like he did a great job just i like the other characters more. 

overall I really really loved this movie. It reminds me of some of my favorite blockbusters of the past and its a film that feels both beautiful, tense, and dramatic. It like all good movies manages to leave you in a good place when you finish no matter how strongly it made you feel in the middle. hope that helps.