The Sixth Sense

O.k. So I guess we all know about this film by now. If you don't, well how exactly was it in the Arctic Circle for the past year? I believe by now most of us have formed an opinion on this movie. You either love it or you hate it. Or you think it is good, but way overrated. If you have yet to see it (and since you are at this website and most likely a fan of the Horror genre) then you have some crazy reason for not seeing it. Maybe you refuse to see Horror films that get rave reviews and become huge successes.

Here is the plot in a quick nutshell without giving anything away. Bruce Willis plays a child psychologist who after coming home from winning an award for his achievement's with children, is greeted in his bedroom by a former patient whom he failed to help. The patient (played with brilliance by Donnie Wahlberg, though he may prefer to be called Don or Donald nowadays) proceeds to shoot Bruce in the gut.

Fast forward a year from the shooting and Bruce is trailing a young boy. It turns out that Bruce is out to save another young mind. From there we are taken down a path that brings us in very close with these people and we learn to care about them and the things that they are troubled by.

"The Sixth Sense" is a very unusual film to come out from a U.S. studio. The film would find more comfort in the halls of European Horror films. In the States film directors are more interested in hurling you along at a break neck pace. This film seems to want to take you down a path and just let you get creeped out. It is a very unsettling little film. The film also uses colors to a great degree, which is another European style. The whole thing is just very non-American feeling. If you are after a film along the lines of (God forbid) "End Of Days", "Stigmata", "The Haunting", or any number of other recent Horror films from the U.S., then move along, this ain't one of those. Hell, "Blair Witch..." is more conventional in its scare tactics than this one is. How many times have we all as kids tried to scare our friends by hiding in the dark and making noises? So in those respects, "Blair Witch" ain't anything original. Though I did kind of enjoy it, mainly that ending.

As by now you may have heard, there is a twist to the whole movie. If you don't know what it is, forget about it. This movie is good enough to be viewed on it's own. It is a great twist, but do yourself a favor and don't try to find it. When I saw this movie in the theatres I went in looking for the catch. By about a half hour into it I was enjoying the movie so much, I forgot anything about the catch. So just go and enjoy the movie.

The DVD looks great. This is what DVD is all about! The picture is crisp, clear, dark blacks and comfortable light. The color of the film as I have said is that sort of muted "Argento" style of color. The colors are extremely bright, yet kind of muted. You knw what I mean if you have ever seen Argento.

Sound wise this thing sounds great also. The film is fairly quiet, yet when there are sound effects and music cues, they are damn near perfect and this disc lets those sounds ring through nice and clear.

The extras are plentiful. We get tons of interviews with the director/ writer M. Night. Plus interviews with all of the stars and people responsible for the movie. I just want to go on the record as to saying that M. Night is the EXACT type of person I want to see a huge success in Hollywood. Just watching the interviews with him, you see this is a man who loves his films. He also has a great level of respect for the genre he has chosen to direct in for this movie. He plays it all serious and in the interview you can see the love for this film he has. You almost can't help but smile along with him as he talks about this movie. As for the love of the genre, just watch his early movie that is included in the extra's and tell me he doesn't love the world of Horror.

All in all, this here is a near perfect Horror film. It is one of the few that is able to do something that I feel only the Horror genre is capable of doing. It is able to be at once haunting and horrifying, and yet beautiful beyond words. It scares you, yet makes you love life. It is a strange marriage between the grotesque and the beatuiful. Only in Horror is this capable. No other film can achieve the beauty that a Horror film can. I will forever hold that argument. This, along with films like "The Exorcist", any number of Val Lewton films, and a select few others, hold up that argument for me.

So if you do not yet own this, and yet you like this movie, don't be a fool and put it off any longer. If you don't like it, rent it , watch the interviews with M. Night, and see it as not a blood and guts Horror film, but rather as a quiet, disturbing little tale. Something from M.R. James perhaps. If you have yet to see it, do. It is a brilliant movie that needs as many viewers as there are in this world.