The Sixth Sense

UK Release Date. 5 November 1999
Certification. 15
Running Time. 1 hour 47 mins
Director. M. Night Shyamalan
Cast. Toni Collette, Haley Joel Osment, Olivia Williams, Bruce Willis.

Rating. 79%

Review.

M. Night Shyamalan's breakout film, The Sixth Sense brought him widespread critical acclaim and commercial success. Adorning the front cover of the magazine, Newsweek confidently proclaimed M. Night Shyamalan as 'The Next Spielberg.' For Shyamalan though, this may have been the last chance to define himself as Spielberg's heir apparent. His 1992 directorial debut, Praying For Anger was unremarkable at best, and the appalling Wide Awake (starring Denis Leary and Rosie O'Donnell) bombed after three years of edits and reshoots. Therefore, The Sixth Sense feels like the first M. Night Shyamalan film and the film that defined the director's trademark style. It's almost as if his earlier work never happened at all.

While the M. Night Shyamalan that emerges following The Sixth Sense may resemble Spielberg in his innovative storytelling and pristine imagery, the real audacity of the film is Shyamalan's commitment to establishing a tone - a sombre one, which goes far beyond the ominous overtures associated with many horror films. The director would repeat this feat to even greater effect in his follow-up film, Unbreakable. Shyamalan's grey and gloomy Philadelphia is less about creating a frightening atmosphere, and more about imposing an unsettling, deeper, melancholic ambience on the action that unfolds.

A prominent child psychologist Dr Malcolm Crowe (Bruce Willis) is shaken out of his complacency after a violent home invasion by a former patient. Searching for more than a little personal and professional redemption, Crowe is determined not to make the same mistakes twice when he takes on the case of Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osment), an apparently psychologically troubled 8-year-old boy.

At the heart of the film is a truly terrifying premise. Summoning the spirit of The Omen, the film is quietly purposeful, deliberate and routinely unsettling. Shyamalan relies on the psychological as the primary scare tactic, rather than CGI overload or gore. Simple but effective tactics are employed. A sudden frosty breath. A fading, clammy handprint. A young girl's hand thrust from underneath the bed. Chilling. 

The film also benefits from a phenomenal performance from the convincingly haunted young lead, Haley Joel Osment. His sensitive, soulful, sad-eyed performance provides the film with an affecting emotional core that helps offset Shyamalan's weakness for occasionally burdening scenes in weighty significance. Osment's delivery of, "All the time. They're everywhere." will surely send shivers down your spine.

Then there's the ending. Perhaps one of the most talked about plot twists in cinema history and one of those revelations that make you mentally unpick everything you have seen previously.

The virtues and faults of The Sixth Sense have burdened M. Night Shyamalan for the rest of his career. Shyamalan had found a formula for success and he wasn't inclined, or perhaps allowed, to deviate from it. Instead, he kept drawing from the same well, creeping into darker corners of the human psyche. Pigeon-holed by many as the director who delivers twists, Shyamalan appears to be forever chasing the same sleight of hand that shocked audiences in The Sixth Sense, but has mostly made them groan ever since.