In ‘Signs,’ the Aliens Were Never the Point

Revisiting Shyamalan’s 2002 classic about a broken and wavering family threatened by little green men

In his best films, M. Night Shyamalan creates a microcosm of a handful of characters that get triggered and threatened by an external force. Whether you think of The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, or The Village, they all have this in common. Despite its disguise as a suspense-ridden quasi-invasion horror, Signs is no different. No matter how chilling the movie gets, at its core, it's about a damaged and disconnected family trying to heal. They just happen to need an alien attack to find a way to do so.

Shyamalan establishes this recurring theme early on. It comes right after small-town police officer Paski (Cherry Jones) and Mel Gibson’s ex-priest Graham discover the giant crop circles left by extraterrestrials at the back of the man’s farm. Paski asks the grieving husband and father, “What’s wrong?” He replies, “I don’t hear my children.” It’s a flawlessly written and directed scene teeming with a mixture of ominous energy and parental love that simultaneously displays affection, fear, and disconnection. It’s a pivotal moment that signals emotional maturity upfront, planting the seed for drama and unnerving suspense that feed off each other.

Despite all of its seriousness that’s been mocked to death in pop culture over the years, though, Signs has a keen sense of humor that seems overlooked in retrospect. In the first half an hour, Shyamalan’s script is full of cute and witty gags, playing on alien conspiracies (Do they exist? Should we believe in them?) and the locals’ old-fashioned skepticism. It's only a few scenes but Shyamalan's sharp writing with his silly yet witty jokes brings the protagonists closer to us instantly. Say what you will about him, but the man used to be a master of dialogue and atmosphere (and while the former is no longer true, the latter still is).

That said, the most fascinating aspect of Signs is how the screenplay switches the traditional roles between adults and children as reality keeps hitting them with curveballs, screwing with their entire belief system. You can actually pinpoint the moment when both Graham and his brother Merrill (Joaquin Phoenix) start to believe the big-eyed creatures from space might be real (all it takes is a child’s insistence and a baby monitor picking up signals). It’s about setting the right context. In a time and era when The X-Files was a still-running cultural phenomenon — providing a ton of conspiracy theories — Shyamalan knew he could rely on the audience's general knowledge about little green men, even if his script only used them as catalysts.

Just like he knew that regular, rational folk would need a lot of convincing to believe this isn't another gimmick. So he used Graham and Merrill as stand-ins for viewers, showing us how they slowly succumb to the growing dread inside them and act like dumbfounded children faced with the incomprehensible. Meanwhile, Graham's son Morgan (Rory Culkin was destined to become a familiar face in horrors) makes all the wise moves: he tapes the news to make observations. He starts reading about extraterrestrial life. He uses tinfoil hats so the aliens can’t manipulate their minds.

For most of the plot, he's our little Mulder in “I want to believe” mode, trying to convince all the Scullys around him to consider the impossible. Alongside his sister (played by the ridiculously adorable Abigail Breslin), Morgan steals the spotlight as a quiet and shy kid because Shyamalan makes him the emotional core of the story. His portrayal is gentle and vulnerable, but more importantly, he’s the glue that connects the key moments in the film seamlessly.

Despite Shyamalan's natural instinct as a storyteller to always shock and surprise his audience, there's no sleight of hand or any gimmick here to lead us astray. Everything happens in front of our eyes as naturally (or supernaturally) as possible, and he never tries to overcommit to what he's selling. There’s no mind-bending twist waiting for us at the end (which made a lot of people angry at the time, expecting another well-executed trick from the auteur).

No. Signs is a quiet contemplation on grief and faith that uses aliens as a means to an end. We never leave the small town, or Graham and his family, and most of the “invasion” happens on television screens and radio while we stay at the farm. The nail-biting suspense that Shyamalan expertly crafts out of noises, everyday objects, and using dark and light masterfully are all here to bring out real emotions. It’s the horror serving the drama and never the other way around.

Thus it’s wild to me that after 22 years Signs is still viewed as somewhat controversial in the director’s filmography (some saying it’s the movie where he lost it), when it's actually among his most polished work. Every element that makes its central drama effective is there, pulled out from a cinematic toolbox that shows the wide range Shyamalan has as a filmmaker and storyteller. All the plot nit-picking about the aliens, their intelligence, underdeveloped technology, and overall purpose (or even the lack of guns) is beside the point.

If you watched the director’s most impressive features, Signs clearly has a similar narrative structure and quality to them. Dramatically and technically, it’s on the same level. The rest is just a question of personal preference and taste. If there’s one thing to pick on it's that it’s less original and much simpler than The Sixth Sense or Unbreakable. But that doesn’t negate the fact that it's a skillfully written and directed film that lives up to its creator’s standards (at least the ones he had back then). I wish he’d applied those more strictly in his recent thrillers because the filmmaker he was in 2002 was still heavily invested in flesh-and-blood characters and their complicated emotions. The one he is today, not so much.

That’s why I love going back to his early features because they remind me how I watched these movies for the scares as a teen, and how I watch them for the big emotions as an adult today. They still work both ways.

---

I’ve been thinking about starting a column about horrors from the 2000s that received a lot of attention and entered the zeitgeist briefly at the time but got pretty much forgotten ever since. Think of The Grudge (2004) remake, The Ring 2, James Wan’s Dead Silence, or Jeepers Creepers as examples. Let me know in the comments (or reply to this email) if this is something you’d be excited to read.

As always, thanks for reading The Screen.