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Signs (film)

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This article is about the Signs movie. For other references to signs, see Signs. For other uses of the word sign, see Sign.
Signs
Directed byM. Night Shyamalan
Written byM. Night Shyamalan
Produced byFrank Marshall
Sam Mercer
M. Night Shyamalan
StarringMel Gibson
Joaquin Phoenix
Distributed byTouchstone Pictures
Release dates
August 2, 2002
Running time
106 min.
LanguageEnglish
Budget$72 million

Signs is a 2002 science fiction thriller film directed by M. Night Shyamalan starring Mel Gibson, Joaquin Phoenix, Rory Culkin, and Abigail Breslin. Although the plot revolves around aliens and crop circles, producer Frank Marshall said, "It's really about human emotions set in motion by a supernatural event." Shyamalan, who also plays a neighbor in the film, was inspired by Invasion of the Body Snatchers and The Birds.[citation needed] The film received above-average critical success and was one of the highest grossing films of 2002.

Plot

The Hess family lives on a farm in Doylestown, Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Graham Hess is a former Episcopal priest who lost his faith after the death of his wife Colleen, in a horrific traffic accident caused by Ray Reddy (played by M. Night Shyamalan), a driver who fell asleep at the wheel. No longer practicing religiously, Graham lives with his brother, Merrill, and his two children, Bo and Morgan.

File:Gibsonsigns.jpg
Mel Gibson as Graham Hess in Signs

Things are fairly steady in his life until a mysterious crop circle appears in his cornfield. Its origin and purpose is unknown; some townspeople speculate that it may be a prank while a few others think that it may have been created by intelligent alien life-forms. Throughout the film, we learn that Bo has a peculiar aversion to water that is not fresh from the faucet, leaving behind half-consumed glasses of water around the house (or wherever she has been).

As the story progresses, it is clear that Graham's farm is under watch; one night, he and Merrill chase a tall, dark figure who was spying on them from the roof of their barn. The mysterious being disappears into the crops, moving faster and disappearing far easier than anyone can explain. Soon Graham and his family are shocked to learn that similar crop circles have suddenly appeared all over the world in ways too quickly to be merely a grand, elaborate hoax. Graham tries to distract his family from the facts by taking them into town where they see Ray Reddy, the man who inadvertently killed Graham's wife.

Merrill visits a U.S. Army Recruitment Center, operated by Sergeant First Class Cunningham. Cunningham tells Merrill that there have been sightings by two families of trespassers in the area, and proposes to Merrill a theory that they are reconnaissance missions by the creatures, meant to probe Earth's landing sites in preparation for a full-scale invasion. Cunningham also asks Merrill why he broke AAA Baseball records for distance hitting, but never went to the majors. Lionel Prichard (Michael Showalter), a young man Merrill knows as a prankster who causes trouble on the Hess farm, is also in the office. He ridicules Merrill and states that the reason for his records is Merrill's penchant for trying to hit a home run every time, resulting in the record for most strike-outs. Merrill and Graham let the children buy a book about extra-terrestrials, despite them trying to block out the rumors and news/radio broadcasts.

During the trip back home, Morgan is trying to make Bo's baby monitor work in hopes of catching the aliens' signal. Merrill tries to convince Morgan that the occurrences are a hoax created by nerds. As they get out of the car, weird noises come from the baby monitor, clicking and popping alien communication ensues. Observing that the baby monitor gets better reception at higher altitudes, Morgan climbs up onto the car roof with the monitor and surmises there are two of them talking. The baby monitor loses the signal soon after. At one point, Graham goes outside to put the garbage out. Isabelle, his other dog, jumps up and tries to bite him. He concludes that the aliens' presence must affect the animals in some way, provoking their aggressive behavior. He looks at the dog and then at his corn field, he picks up a torch and ventures into the crops. After discovering another huge crop circle, he steps out into the huge space and announces in a deep voice that whoever is doing this is not going to make themselves famous and that they will not be arrested if they come forward. After receiving no response, he disappears back into the crops. He eventually gets a little lost and stops, hearing what sounds like alien communication. Shining his torch into the crops, something knocks the torch from his hands and it hits the floor, the light fades. He bangs the torch and the light shines again, its light travels down a path and he sees an alien's leg disappearing into the corn. He jumps and hurdles back to the house, terrified.

File:Signs circle2.jpg
one of the many crop circles seen in the film

As the movie progresses, we see more televised news reports of crop circle sightings around the world, followed by many sightings of UFOs, presumed to be of alien origin. The situation turns even more dangerous when the UFOs become invisible. However, the government and news agencies are certain that they are still floating above Earth, due to the fact that a bird was observed flying into them and falling straight down. At one point, Graham enters his children's bedroom and reads their extra terrestrial book with them. Strangely, the book depicts a picture of a house similar to their own, with three shadowed bodies lying in a corn field. A UFO is depicted whizzing off into the night sky, flying past a farm in flames. The children seem to think this is a coincidence, but Graham is disturbed by its similarity to his family's farm and situation. One afternoon, after Graham leaves the house to see Ray Reddy, Merrill sees startling video footage on the news of an alien at a boy's birthday party in Passo Fundo, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. This is the first time that the viewer catches a glimpse of an alien, seeing it walk across the frame. It is a green, bipedal creature that has an intimidating and sadistic appearance, being so thin it resembles a decomposed, skeletal corpse.

Graham goes to Reddy's home. The guilt-ridden veterinarian's enigmatic dialogue expresses regret for killing Graham's wife and his theories about what is happening. He drives away after warning Graham "Don't open my pantry, Father. I found one of them in there and locked 'im in." Upon investigating, Graham tries to discover what is locked in the pantry by holding a kitchen knife underneath the door and looking in its reflection. When a hand lunges for him from under the door, he cuts off two of the intruder's clawed fingers.

Graham returns home and finds his family waiting for him on the sofa, wearing pointed hats made of aluminum foil to prevent the aliens from reading their minds. Merrill tells Graham that the aliens' skin can change colour, hence their nocturnal invisibility. Learning from Morgan that they would probably invade if they were hostile and believing that the aliens are about to invade if they were so, Graham comes up with two alternatives: going to the lake, in hope that the aliens do not like water as Ray supposed (Ray pointed out that none of the crop circles have appeared close to bodies of water, so he drove to the lake) or staying home. After a family vote, they decide to stay home and they board up all the doors and windows. While Graham and Merrill do this, Morgan and Bo watch the news and find out that there are UFOs in over 274 cities, and the number is growing rapidly.

They board up the last doors and windows and go to the living room, waiting for the aliens. Soon after, three aliens climb up onto the roof and get in through the attic. When Merrill looks up the stairs to investigate the noises they are making, he discovers that they forgot to board up the attic access door in the ceiling. As time is short, the family decide to hide in the basement and use a mattock to prop the basement door closed. They hear the aliens banging and breaking things, implying they're trying to get in through the propped door, but Graham soon concludes that they're just making noises and not trying to get in. They discover that the aliens are just trying to keep their attention on the door, this is when Morgan says that he read in his book that they are very good problem solvers. Graham starts to think and remembers that they used pour down coal and store it in the basement, so there must be a coal chute somewhere. Graham and Merill start looking for the chute and when they find it, Morgan is standing in front of it and an alien's hand grabs his face. The flashlights are dropped and everything goes pitch black as the two men struggle to get its hand off Morgan. Momentarily, Bo picks up the flashlight and shines it around the basement and discovers Graham lying on the floor with Morgan. Morgan is having a severe asthma attack and no one has Morgan's medicine. As they sit together, Graham attempts to calm Morgan down by talking to him. Appearing close to breaking point, he whispers "I hate you" and "Don't do this to me again" apparently aimed at God, who he blames for taking his wife from him.

The next morning, they hear on the radio that the aliens are retreating, even leaving behind their wounded. Graham wants to know for sure before opening up the door, looking at Morgan and saying he won't survive another attack. They reach for the baby monitor in his pocket and see that there is no signal coming in, indicating that the alien spaceships must be gone. The family returns upstairs to discover their house ransacked. The local news reports that the aliens invaded the whole world, kidnapping people and gassing them.

Before the family can celebrate, the alien whose claws Graham severed earlier appears and takes Morgan hostage. It sprays a poisonous gas into Morgan's face from a spine beneath its wrist. Graham has a flashback of his wife dying, and recalls her last words, telling him to "see" and to tell Merrill to "swing away." In a revelatory moment, Graham sees what he feels is a purpose behind these events, and he tells Merrill to "swing away." Merrill takes his baseball bat down from the wall and attacks the alien with it as Graham grabs Morgan's medicine and takes the children outside. The alien falls backwards into a half-empty glass of water that Bo left out, and it burns through its flesh. As Merrill looks around, he realizes Bo's glasses of water she has left behind can be used to fight the alien. He begins to attack the alien through hitting the glasses and spraying the water onto its body, eventually killing it when a full glass falls on its face.

Joining the others outside, Merrill finds that Morgan is not breathing and fears the worst, but Graham explains that the asthma has closed Morgan's lungs, saving him from the poisonous gas. Moments later, Morgan's lungs open and he appears to be on the road to recovery. The final scene shows Graham preparing for mass the following year, his faith restored.

Cast

Structure

The story is presented chronologically except for the scenes detailing the death of Graham's wife. There are several of these flashbacks, sometimes repeating the same footage, but progressively revealing more details. The film's dramatic structure resembles others of its genre (especially Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds) but with some surprises, notably its exploration of the deeper psychological and religious aspects of human-felt terror. One of the first images we see is a cross-shaped "clean spot" on the wall of Graham's bedroom. We infer that the cross was removed when the death of Graham's wife precipitated his crisis of faith, yet its image remains. People can't stop calling him "Father", though he asks them not to, and a girl in town insists he hear her confession. Most poignantly, throughout the building terror, Graham's family looks to him for pastoral reassurance, which he can't (or won't) provide.

The suspense builds slowly at first, though not without foreboding (early on, the family dog is skewered with a barbecue fork). Graham insists the family go about its business normally, but the children quickly size up the impending alien invasion, finally confirmed by worldwide television coverage. A pivotal dramatic moment is the late-night whispered exchange between Graham and Merrill, in which each stakes out his philosophical position on the impending tragedy.

The twist at the end of Signs is a little different from Shyamalan's other films, like The Sixth Sense. In those films, some important fact is withheld from the audience until the end; in Signs, it is the meaning of the facts that is revealed. As the family battles the now-visible enemy, the disconnected details of the story (Morgan's asthma, Bo's aversion to stale water, Colleen's apparently nonsensical last words) all come to rapid-fire convergence with Graham's understanding of the "signs".

Deleted scenes

On the DVD, there are some deleted scenes:

  • Flashbacks 1 and 2: Two scenes with Graham's wife, Colleen. In one, she dances with him, and in another, she is sitting with a toddler Morgan and baby Bo in a rocking chair while Graham watches.
  • The dead bird: With no sound, this scene shows Graham going back home from Ray's, and after a short time, a dead bird near the road (after supposedly hitting an invisible Forcefield) is shown.
  • The attic door and the third story: The longest one, it starts with Merrill finding out about the not-boarded attic door. Despite Graham's efforts to call him back, Merrill goes up the stairs and manages to hold the door by climbing up a chair and putting his hands at the door. Trying to help, Graham looks for a way to hold the door. He gets a tall shelving unit, and places it under the door. Knowing this is only a temporary solution, Graham gets his family and take them to a small room and put some chairs at the door to hold the aliens out of the room. There, he tells the "third story", about Merril, in which he broke his arm. Then everyone goes down to the basement, the only safe (but with no exit) room available.

Reception

Signs garnered above average reviews from movie critics.[1] It grossed nearly $228 million at the box office, ranking only behind The Sixth Sense in Shyamalan's box office success and grossing more than The Village and Unbreakable combined.

In 2004, it was listed as #77 on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments.

Trivia

  • The Brazilian birthday party scene resembles the purported real life events of the Varginha UFO incident, and may be based on them.
  • The first scenes shot on this movie were of the incident with Graham's wife the night she dies. This was filmed on September 12, 2001, the day after the terrorist attacks on New York; before they commenced filming, the film crew held an all-night vigil to honor the victims of the attack.[citation needed]
  • The rescue squad used in the film is not from Newtown, Pennsylvania, but rather from Bristol, Pennsylvania a bit south. The reason for this is they are the only squad in Bucks County whose ambulances have markings needed for the film. All other squads in the area have the township they are from written on the side. The Bristol Squad (#143) have only "Bucks County Rescue Squad" written on the side, this allows for the accident to happen anywhere in the county and allow for the proper amount of time to pass before Mel Gibson's character arrives on scene. Another film by Shyamalan, Lady in the Water, is filmed in the same area the rescue squad services (Levittown, Pennsylvania).
  • Sinai Beach, a Christian metalcore band opens up their song "Candice" with Joaquin Phoenix's line "I saw your eyes last night, I don't want to ever see your eyes like that again."
  • The exterior shots of the farmhouse were filmed on the property of Delaware Valley College, located just outside of Doylestown, Pennsylvania. The house was merely a shell and has since been torn down.
  • Shyamalan originally wrote the character of Graham Hess to be much older. Paul Newman and Clint Eastwood were both considered for the role; Newman turned it down while Eastwood was unavailable due to a scheduling conflict. Hess' children in the final version were originally to be his grandchildren had either Newman or Eastwood accepted the role, with Merrill to play his nephew.[2]
  • Mark Ruffalo was originally going to play Merrill Hess but had to withdraw due to illness. The role later went to Joaquin Phoenix.[3]
  • The aliens in Signs are satirized in Scary Movie 3 when Tom Logan (Charlie Sheen) says "they mastered interplanetary space travel but can't open a door?".
  • In "Orpheus", a season 7 episode of Stargate SG-1, Sam and Daniel talk about the movie. Sam remarks, about the aliens' sensitivity to water: "Why go to all the trouble to invade a planet that's two-thirds water?"

See also

References

  1. ^ http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/signs/
  2. ^ http://www.signsmovie.co.uk/india_west.html
  3. ^ http://www.notstarring.com/actors/ruffalo-mark
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