Mocking Halloween: Signs

Ahh yes, Signs. Shyamalan's ode to Hitchcock and one of the first movies he directed. When this movie debuted it received pretty positive reviews and was Mel Gibson’s last movie till Edge of Darkness. The story follows a priest who lost his faith after a drunk truck driver hit and killed his wife. While his family tries to adapt to his new lifestyle they are unwillingly thrown into the middle of an alien invasion after crop circles appear in their cornfields. Sure the plot seems a bit random given the hard-hitting story but that’s not my beef here. I don’t want to complain about the ‘twist’ since I feel as though water as the alien’s weakness is NOT a twist but rather something minor. It was a scene that always made me go… “What are you doing? Just pack your shit up and leave!”

When Gibson’s character confronts the drunk driver (who happens to be a local and played by M. Night himself) he is sitting alone, calm, pensive and spooked in his car. He gets into the car with him and they have a little chat about what happened the night of the accident. It’s not until they are done having their 10-minute scene of exposition till we realize he locked an alien in the pantry. At that point I was like, “why are they sitting their talking about an accident when there are aliens running around the place, especially when one is in the damn pantry?” I understand that it was for dramatic effect but if I were M. Night I would be like, “Yeah, man, sorry about your wife but holy shit there is an alien in my pantry. Go home! Save your kids! I’m out of here!” Perhaps I am being nitpicky, oh darn, but this scene felt way to dramatic considering the circumstances of everything around them.

There are other scenes throughout the movie where Mel is talking to his kids about how they were being born while giant Amazon sized aliens are attacking the house and I was left flabbergasted. For the love of everything holy… grab your kids, throw ‘em into the cellar and tell them to calm down or shit WILL hit the fan. Oh Shyamalan; you and your dramatic talks.