Signs of meaning

It's not Providence, but director M. Night Shyamalan seems intent on convincing us that everything has a purpose | Andrew Coffin

M. NIGHT SHYAMALAN LIKES to flout convention. The first of his string of recent hit films, The Sixth Sense, was a horror film/ghost story, without any haunted mansions, decapitations, or even, in the traditional sense, any ghosts. The director followed this breakout hit with a movie about comic books and the birth of a superhero. Yet Unbreakable, which, like the first film, starred Bruce Willis, didn't have any big explosions, flashy villains, or men in tights. Now, with the release of Signs, Mr. Shyamalan is asking his audience to buy an alien invasion movie in the vein of War of the Worlds that's almost completely lacking in ... aliens.

And, judging from the roughly $120 million Signs (rated PG-13 for frightening moments and some bad language) has grossed in its first two weeks of release, Mr. Shyamalan's audience is buying it. This may be partially the result of star Mel Gibson's appeal and Mr. Shyamalan's reputation for surprise endings, which began with the highly publicized twist at the end of The Sixth Sense. But it's also due to Mr. Shyamalan's undeniable skill. He is building for himself a canon of supernatural genre films that root the fantastic in the ordinary, and, despite their effective suspense, always have something beyond simple entertainment in mind.